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HE LOST FOUND 



IbI WILLIAM M.TAYLOR.D.n 




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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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; UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



THE LOST FOUND, 



AND THE 



WANDERER WELCOMED. 



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The Lost Found, 



AND 



THE WANDERER WELCOMED. 



BY/ 

/ 
WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D., 

MINISTER OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, NEW YORK. 



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NEW YORK: 
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG AND COMPANY, 

1873. 



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Entered according to. act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONO & COMPANY, 
In the of&ce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, 



C NTENl S. 



PA6B 

THE LOST SHEEP 3 

THE LOST COIN 33 

THE PRODIGAL SON. 

I. — The Depaetuee 59 

n. — The Resolution 85 

m.— The Retuen. r^ 115 

rV. — The Eldee Beothee 147 



THE LOST SHEEP. 



** Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear 
him. 

" And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying. This man receiveth 
sinners, and eateth with them. 

" And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 

** Wliat man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, 
doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that 
which is lost, until he find it ? 

*' And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 

*'And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and 
neighbors, saying unto them, Kejoice with me ; for I have found my sheep 
which was lost. 

*• 1 say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need 
no repentance.** 

Luke, xv., 1-7. 



THE LOST SHEEP. 



The personal ministry of Christ had a mar- 
vellous attractiveness for the degraded outcasts 
of the Jewish population, and, wherever He 
went, the Pariahs of the people gathered round 
Him, in listening multitudes. Everywhere " the 
common people heard Him gladly," and among 
the crowds that thronged around Him, the hat- 
ed tax-gatherers, whose extortions made them 
obnoxious to their fellow-citizens ; the openly 
immoral, whose vices were abhorred by their 
more respectable neighbors ; and those poor 
waifs of womanhood, the fallen ones who traf- 
ficked in their own dishonor, were specially 
conspicuous. Nor is it difl&cult to account for 
this ; for though He loathed the sins. He loved 
the sinners, and stretched out to them the hand 
of sympathy and succor. He did not draw 



4: THE LOST FOUND. 

them to Himself by making them think less of 
the guilt which they had incurred, but by awak- 
eiiing in them a sense of the loss which they 
had sustained, and by implanting in them the 
hope of restoration. His purity alone might 
have repelled them, even as it drove the demons 
shrieking from His presence ; His love alone 
might have done no more than soothe them by 
the manifestation of his interest in them ; but 
the gospel which He proclaimed to them, and 
which announced that even the vilest might be 
received into the favor of the Lord, won their 
interest, and drew them to His side. Others 
had denounced their iniquity, but that only made 
them tremble, as their fathers did at the base of 
Sinai. He took them by the hand, and, by His 
declaration of the possibility of their receiving 
forgiveness, and of their recovering that image of 
God which they had lost. He revived the better 
nature which had been dead within them, and 
dissipated that despair which had made them re- 
gardless alike of God and man. This was the 
magnetism that attracted them ; and as they 
hung upon His hope-inspiring words, they said, 
** Never man spake like this man." 

Tiiere was much, too, in His mode of treating 



THE LOST SHEEP. 5 

tliem tliat disposed them to flock around Him. 
The solemn purists of the land held them at a 
distance. They passed them by, like the priest 
and Levite in the parable, " on the other side." 
They acted as if they would be polluted by the 
most cursory intercourse with them. They seemed 
to think that all their duty toward them was dis- 
charged, if they simply held aloof from them. 
But here was One whose character was unsul- 
lied, and whose life was blameless, who yet did 
not think it beneath Him to put Himself, for 
the time, on a level with them, by receiving them 
into His company, and sitting down with them 
at table ; and such was the effect of His fellow- 
ship upon them, that they were elevated and en- 
nobled by its influence, and left His presence 
more drawn to holiness and heaven than they 
had ever felt before. Others had driven them 
downwards, but Jesus had lifted them up. He 
made them feel their importance as immortal be- 
ings. He opened up to them the way to hap- 
piness and to God, and helped them to enter 
upon it. He taught them to respect themselves 
by showing them that they were the objects of 
the Divine compassion, and by telling them that 
He had come to seek and save them ; and so it 



6 THE LOST FOUND. 

was that, while the spiritually and intellectually 
proud stood haughtily aside from Him, the pub- 
licans and sinners pressed near to hear His say- 
ings. 

But this very success among the despised of 
the people still further alienated the self-righteous 
from Him. Already, indeed, they had been re- 
pelled by His searching discourses, which insist- 
ed so constantly on inward holiness, as distin- 
guished from mere outward morality or ritualistic 
observances ; but when they saw the character of 
those who were thus clustering round him, they 
sneeringly said, " This man receivetli sinner s, and 
eateth with them,'' Usually, the sting of a taunt 
lies in its truth ; but, in this instance, what they 
meant in contemptuous scorn was in reality the 
highest glory of the Lord, and is to-day the sum 
and substance of the gospel which we preach, 
When John the Baptist sent from his prison to 
assure himself of the genuineness of the Mes- 
siahship of Jesus, the Lord replied by working 
many miracles before the eyes of his messengers, 
and by telling them to go their way and show 
their master what they had seen ; adding, as the 
most important evidence of the divinity of His 
mission, and the greatest miracle of all — '* And to 



THE LOST SHEEP. 7 

the poor the gospel is preached." Nor was he 
mistaken in this ; for grander, more glorious, and, 
as an evidence of Christianity, more convincing 
by far, than any miracle on the bodies of men, 
was the moral miracle which, by the power of His 
Spirit, was wrought on the vilest of those who be- 
lieved in His words, and which we may see daily 
repeated before our eyes. " This man receiveth 
sinners." We thank thee, Scribe, for teaching us 
the words ; let them be caught up and repeated by 
echoing voices in every city and in every land, 
until every child of Adam has experienced their 
truth. Sinners — not righteous men, not rich, not 
noble, not mighty, not moral, but sinners — no 
matter how vile and guilty they may have been — 
here are His words : — " Him that cometh unto 
me I will in no wise cast out." Receiveth sinners 
— not coldly treateth them, not holdeth them 
aloof, not regardeth them with freezing dignity 
and stately solemnity, but receiveth them to His 
heart, and spreadeth for them a table, at which 
He counts them His most valued guests. It was 
meant as a sneer ; and yet, all unconsciously, 
tliese Scribes and Pharisees, in giving it expres- 
sion, did preach the gospel more simply and more 
truly than it has often been proclaimed by sur- 



8 THE LOST FOUND. 

pliced bishop or by trained minister. What can 
we say more, or better, in teUing the good news 
than this — " Jesus receiveth sinners ?" Guilty 
one ! this morning. He will receive thee ; for are 
not these his words, '' Come unto me, and I will 
give you rest ?' 

This was not the only occasion on which such 
a taunt was uttered. Frequently the same thing 
was thrown in the Saviour's teeth, and he had 
two ways of meeting it. Sometimes he repelled 
it, by trying to awaken those who used it to a 
sense of their own sinfulness. Thus, when, at the 
call of Matthew, He sat down to the banquet 
which the publican had prepared, and the Phar- 
isees said to his disciples, " Why eateth your mas- 
ter with publicans and sinners ?" He made an- 
swer, " They that are whole need not a physi- 
cian, but they that are sick ;" and then sought to 
reveal their own sickness to them by saying, ^' Go 
ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mer- 
cy, and not sacrifice." That is to say. He re- 
minded them of the inner and spiritual nature of 
all acceptable service, that He might the better 
convince them of the utter formalism of their re- 
ligious exercises. Sometimes, again. He justified 
His conduct by dwelling on the mercy of God to 



THE LOST SHEEP. 9 

sinners, and setting forth the great object of His 
mission to mankind. This was the course He 
followed at Jericho, when to those who gibed 
Him for going to the house of Zacchgeus, He 
said, " The Son of Man is come to seek and to 
save that which was lost." As if He had replied, 
" I have come to seek the lost ; even, therefore, 
if Zacehaeus should be as bad as you represent 
him to be, I am only fulfilling the real purpose of 
my ministry when I seek to save him. The man 
w^ho is most seriously wounded ought to have the 
surgeon's first attention ; so those whom sin has 
most defaced should have the Saviour's earliest 
care." 

Now, this latter argument is that which Jesus 
employs in the present instance ; for in the par- 
ables which follow He illustrates the great re- 
demption work by a series of pictures, each of 
which leads up to, and centres in, the happiness 
of the Godhead in receiving sinners ; and He 
would have His hearers thence infer, that in work- 
ing among the despised among men. He was truly 
representing the Divine Father, whose eternal 
Son he was ; while, in ridiculing His efforts, 
they were altogether out of sympathy with those 
heavenly intelligences among whom there is joy 



10 THE LOST FOUND. 

over one sinner that repenteth. Behold how- 
out of evil God ever bringeth good ! We owe 
the parable of the prodigal son to the gibes of 
of the Pharisees. They say that the sandal-wood 
gives forth its richest fragrance to the axe that 
cuts it ; and certainly no diviner words ever is- 
sued from the Redeemer's lips than these, which 
came in answer to a sneer. The cross is God's 
reply to men's insulting iniquity, and the story of 
the prodigal is Christ's only response to the scorn 
of His assailants. 

In seeking to expound these parables, as in 
this and a few other discourses I mean to do, it 
is needful to mark, in the outset, not only the 
one great purpose for which they were all related, 
but also the different phases of the one subject 
which they individually present. This will, of 
course, come out more prominently as w^e enter 
more fully on the explanation of each. Mean- 
while, it may be enough to indicate the points 
of agreement and diversity between them. They 
all agree in representing the lost sinner as the 
object of God's solicitude, and the repentant sin- 
ner as the occasion of celestial joy. But theyi; 
differ in the views which they give of the pro- 
cess of the sinner's restoration and recovery. 



THE LOST SHEEP. 11 

The first two parables show us the Divine agen- 
cy in the sinner's recovery ; the last lets us see 
the result of that agency in the sinner's own 
activity. The first two set before us God seek- 
ing the sinner, together with the Divine joy when 
the sinner is found ; the last gives special prom- 
inence to the sinner's own voluntary return to 
God. The first two have their starting-point 
in the heart of God, and we see in them the 
Heavenly Father yearning over his lost child, 
and taking means to find him and bring him 
back. The last has its starting-point in the sin- 
ner himself, and shows us his wandering and his 
return, as well as his reception. But there is no 
discrepancy here. Kather the full truth is to be 
attained by the combination of them all ; and 
when you see the prodigal coming to himself, and 
hear him saying, " I will arise and go to my Fa- 
ther," you are to understand that already the Good 
Shepherd has been there to seek him, and the 
Holy Spirit has been striving within him. Such 
is the grandeur of the work of redemption, that 
no one parable can adequately portray it ; and 
therefore here, we have three given to us, that 
in the union of them all, we might have a more 
complete understanding of the wondrous theme. 



12 THE LOST FOUND. 

But this is not all. Each parable brings be- 
fore ns a particular kind of sinful experience. The 
first, in the wandering sheep, portrays the help- 
less sinner ; the second, in the lost coin, depicts 
tlie man who has fallen so low as to have lost the 
stamp of his Creator, and the consciousness of 
his degradation ; and the third, in the rebellious 
son, sets before us the sinner who is knowing and 
deliberate in his iniquity. Corresponding to this 
difference in the description of the sinner is that 
which we find in the delineation of his recovery ; 
for in the first parable we have the work of the 
divine Son, the great Good Shepherd; in the 
second, that of the Holy Spirit ; and in the third, 
the Eternal Father's eager desire for the salva- 
tion of sinners, and His great delight in their de- 
liverance. In none of the three is there any di- 
rect reference to that cross whereon Jesus gave 
Himself a sacrifice for human guilt ; but we may 
not forget, that He who uttered them was, at the 
very moment, straitened for the accomplish- 
ment of that baptism of blood wherewith for us 
he was baptized, and we must read them all un- 
der the shadow of Calvary. 

But now, leaving these general topics, let 
us look a little at the teaching of the parable 



THE LOST SHEEP. 13 

of the lost sheep. It was spoken by Jesus on an- 
other occasion, as we find recorded in the 18th 
chapter of Matthew's Gospel, at the 12th verse. 
But there it was designed to illustrate the impor- 
tance of even one soul in the Heavenly Father's 
eye. Here it was intended to teach especially 
these four things : first, God's yearning over the 
sinner ; second, The helplessness of the sinner to 
return to God ; third, The means used by God for 
the sinner's recovery ; and fourth. The joy mani- 
fested by God over the sinner's return. Let us 
iake up these in the order now advanced. 

I. There is, first, God's yearning over the sinner. 
Usually, in depicting a lost sinner, we dwell on 
the miseries which he has brought upon himself. 
But this and the succeeding parables differ from 
the ordinary representations of the subject, in 
that they set before us the loss which God has 
sustained in the wandering and rebellion of His 
children. Here it is symbolized by the losing of 
one out of a hundred sheep ; in the next parable, 
by the losing of one out of ten coins ; and in the 
third, by the losing of one out of two sons. Now, 
I know that it would be perilous to press a mere 
human analogy too far, when we are speaking 



14 THE LOST FOUND. 

about Grod. I admit also that, strictly and abso- 
lutely, God cannot be said to lose anything, and 
that He dwelleth evermore in happiness, which 
nothing can either destroy or becloud. But still 
the figure of these parables has, somewhere and 
somehow, a real significance. We cannot, tt© 
must not, eliminate from this losing of the sheep, 
of the money, of the son, all reference to the ef- 
fect of the sinner's rebellion upon God. They 
mean that Jehovah has missed something which 
He had possessed. They mean that from His 
point of view the sinner is as something lost is, 
to its former owner. At first there was a human 
voice in the choral harmony of creation's an- 
them, which rose so sweetly on the ear of God; 
but when sin made its appearance, that voice 
dropped out, and He marked its absence with 
as much regret as Deity can feel. Nay, there 
was a special reason why God should miss hu- 
man allegiance, for man alone, of all His crea- 
tures, so far as we know at least, was created 
in God's image. In him alone could Jehovah 
see the perfect, though miniature, representation 
of Himself; but when he sinned, that image 
was defaced, and God lost the complacency 
which He had in him before. Or, to put it 



THE LOST SHEEP. 15 

more simply, when man fell, God lost the honor 
and service which ought to have been rendered 
by him ; the affection with which He ought to 
have been regarded by him ; and the glory 
which would have resulted to Him had he an- 
swered the great design for which he was cre- 
ated. Nor let it be supposed that, in putting 
this prominently forward, I am insisting on what 
is of no importance ; for, in the consciousness 
of this loss on the part of God, I find the root 
from which at length grew up the great work of 
redemption. And, depraved though we ourselves 
may be, we yet possess so much of our prime- 
val resemblance to God as to be able thorough- 
ly to understand this. We do not like to lose 
anything. No matter how trivial or unimportant 
the object may be, we will search, and search, 
and search again^ rather than give it up as irre- 
coverable ; and the more we value that which 
we have lost, the more earnest will be our exer- 
tions to find it. If it be an animal, or a sum of 
money, we will go hither and thither ourselves, 
and engage our neighbors in the quest, if by 
any means we may be successful ; and if it be a 
son, all the great depths of our hearts will be 
stirred within us, as we set out and track him in 



16 THE LOST FOUND. 

his wanderings, nor will we give over our efforts 
until we come, either on himself, or on his grave. 
Now, there must be something akin to all this in 
that God, whose image was at first enstamped 
upon us. I say not, indeed, that the loss of 
His human children caused Him positive unhap- 
piness ; and yet, after all, why need I be so 
chary? Do not the Holy Scriptures speak of 
Him as being grieved ? Do they not represent 
Him as soliloquizing within Himself thus : " How 
shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? How shall I de- 
liver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as 
Admah ? How shall I set thee as Zeboim ? 
Mine heart is turned within me ; my repentings 
are kindled together." Let me take courage, 
then, and say that, mourning over the loss which 
He had sustained in being deprived of man's af- 
fection and obedience. He yearned in eager ear- 
nestness for his recovery. We can only speak 
of Deity in human words, and these must lose 
some of their earthly meaning when applied to 
Him. Nevertheless, it standeth here most sure, 
that God, when man sinned, lost that which He 
yery much desired to retain ; and that the weight 
of this loss impelled Him to seek after human 
salvation. In the consciousness of loss, there- 



THE LOST SHEEP. 17 

fore, on Jehovali's part, the great work of re- 
demption began, " He so loved the v/orld, that 
he gave his only begotten Son." What is that 
but just another way of saying, He so missed 
man's affection and fellowship, that He gave His 
only begotten Son? He sought our salvation, 
not only for our sakes, but for His own ; and thus 
the sense of loss out of which sprang the pur- 
pose of recovering the sinner corresponds, at the 
one end of the chain, with the rapturous- joy that 
is felt at the other, when " the ransomed of the 
Lord return, and come to Zion." This view of 
the matter may well give careless sinners food 
for serious reflection. Tou are God's. By vir- 
tue of your very creaturehood you belong to 
Him. Your hearts, your lives, your service, ought 
all to be given to Him ; but they are not, and 
this is no mere thing of indifference to Him. 
He misses you. He, on whom the universe 
hangs, and who well might be excused if He had 
no concern for you, misses your love. He hun- 
gers for your affection. He desires your return 
to Him. Yea, he has used means of the most 
costly character to find you out, and to bring you 
back. Why will you continue to disregard Him ? 
Why will you perversely malign Him as one who 



18 THE LOST FOUND. 

takes no interest in your welfare ? Believe, me, 
you can give Him no higher joy than you will 
cause by your return to Him, while your repent- 
ance will secure unalloyed happiness to your- 
selves. 

11. But, in the second place, we have here set 
before us the sinner s own helplessness. He is hke 
a lost sheep. Now, while, as we have seen, this 
means that God has lost him, we must not for- 
get that, on the other side of it, the analogy also 
bears that the sinner has lost himself. There are 
few more helpless creatures than a wandered 
sheep. It runs hither and thither, *' bleating up 
the moor in weary dearth," if perchance it may 
see another of its species, or regain the footsteps 
of the flock ; while it is ever liable to be assailed 
by wild beasts, or to fall headlong over some rug- 
ged precipice, or into some fearful pit. It is 
within the bounds of possibihty, indeed, that it 
may find its way back to the fold; but this is 
not probable, and usually it comes back only 
when it is brought back under the good shep- 
herd's care. Now, what is all this but a picture 
of the sinner? Fretting at its enclosure, and 
longing for the freedom which he expects outside, 



THE LOST SHEEP. 19 

he lias left God's fold. He has gone on and on, 
farther and ever farther awav from his Creator ; 
he has missed the way to happiness ; nor can he 
find a pathway back to that which he has left. 
More helpless than the sheep, he cannot by any 
possibility return unaidedly to God. He is like 
one groping in the dark, or like the little child 
that has lost itself in the busy, bustling streets of 
the crowded city. All he can do is to confess his 
helplessness, and to lift up his Yoice and weep. 
But this, alas ! is usually the very last thing he is 
willing to do. It is, comparatively speaking, an 
easy thing to convince the sinner of his guilt, but 
it is a hard matter to get him to own his help- 
lessness. He will persist in attempting his own 
deliverance. He will seek to satisfy God's law 
for himself, and to find his own way back to hap- 
piness. The sheep will run to the shepherd when 
he appears, and welcome him as its helper, look- 
ing up in dumb gratitude into his face. But the 
sinner, in this respect more stupid even than 
the sheep, too often runs from the Shepherd, and 
will have none of His assistance. Let there be 
no such pride and waywardness among us, my 
brethren ; but recognizing in Jesus the Helper 
whom we need, let us yield ourselves up to Him, 



20 THE LOST FO.U:^a). 

willing to own our helplessness, if only we may- 
be borne in His loving arms to happiness and 
heaven. 

III. We have here, in the third place, tlve 
means used for the sinner s recovery. " Doth He 
not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, 
and go after that which is lost, until he find it ? 
And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his 
shoulders, rejoicing?" Many questions rise out of 
these words which are more easily asked than 
answered. Thus — Whom do these ninety and 
nine represent? v>'hat is meant by the leaving 
of them, and going after that which is lost ? and 
when may the lost be said to be truly found ? 
The ninety and nine are described (in the seventh 
verse) as just persons which need no repentance. 
No'v, some have supposed that we have here a 
reference to the Scribes and Pharisees, to whose 
sneer we have before alluded. They would 
make it an ironical expression of Christ's like 
that other — " They that are whole need not a 
physician, but they that are sick. I came not to 
call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance ;" 
and they would interpret the leaving of the ninety 
and nine, as a kind of implied vindication of 



THE LOST SHEEP. 21 

Himself, by Jesus, for leaving the Scribes and 
Pharisees, and going after the publicans and sin- 
ners. This gives a good and consistent enough 
meaning, and there are many reasons why I 
should be disposed to adopt it ; yet two thoughts 
weigh with me in inclining me to prefer another. 
First, It is positively said here, that these ninety- 
nine need no repentance ; therefore, it is implied 
that they have never sinned. Second, In the 
expression, " Joy shall be in heaven over one sin- 
ner that repenteth more than over ninety and 
nine just persons which need no repentance," 
it is evidently suggested that there is some joy 
over the ninety and nine. But this cannot be 
true if the ninety and* nine represent the Scribes 
and Pharisees, since it is impossible to conceive 
that any inhabitant of heaven could rejoice over 
them. Hence, though even that interpretation is 
involved in many difficulties, I prefer to regard 
the ninety and nine as descriptive of the angels 
who have kept their first estate, and who cease- 
lessly serve God before His throne. If, then, this 
representation be correct, the leaving of the ninety 
and nine will signify the leaving of heaven by the 
Eternal Son, when at the era of the incarnation 
He set out in search of that Avhich was lost ; 



22 THE LOST FOUND. 

and the search itself will include everything 
which Jesus did by His own personal ministry on 
earth, and by His sacrificial death upon the cross, 
and everything which He has done and is now 
doing, by the preaching of His ministers, and by 
the strivings of His spirit for the recovery of sin- 
ners. All the way from heaven to Calvary Jesus 
came to seek lost sinners. He died that the path 
might be opened up for Him to go further still in 
search of them, and for them to be brought 
righteously back under His loving care. He was 
going after that which was lost when He sat by 
the well of Sychar, and conversed with the woman 
of Samaria ; when he called Matthew in his toll- 
booth, and when he summoned Zacchseus from the 
branch of the sycamore-tree whereon he was 
perched. He was going after that which was lost 
when He shed forth His spirit upon Pentecost, 
and inspired His servants to proclaim His truth 
with power ; and He is still going after that which 
is lost, in the events of His providence, whereby 
He rouses the careless to reflection ; in the search- 
ing words of His earnest ministers, who stately 
declare His love, and speak home to the hearts 
of their fellow-men ; and in the strivings of His 
spirit, whereby, often when they can give no ac- 



THE LOST SHEEP. 23 

count of the matter, men's minds are strangely 
turned in the direction of salvation. Yea, He is 
going after that which is lost this morning, as, 
once again, through the exposition of this parable. 
His Love and earnestness, and tenderness, are 
set before you ; nor will His search be concluded 
until the day when the angel shall proclaim that 
" Time shall be no longer." O ! in view of 
this unceasing work of the Good Shepherd, 
may we not sing, in the words of the old 
hymn, — 

*' "Wearily for me Thou soughtest ; 
On the cross my soul Thou boughtest ; 
Lose not all for which Thou wroughtest." 

But when, it may be asked, is a sinner found by 
Christ ? The answer is. When, on his side, the 
sinner finds Christ. The finding by Christ of the 
lost sheep is, in the closing verse of the parable, 
represented as the repenting of the sinner. When, 
therefore, guilty and forlorn, without hope of ac- 
ceptance in anything, save in the merits of his 
Saviour, the sinner turns to God, he is found ; 
or, borrowing a side-light from the third parable 
here, when the prodigal comes to himself, and 
says, "I will arise, and go to my father," at that. 



24: THE LOST FOUND. 

moment he is found by Clirist. What is seen in 
heaven is Christ laying His loving hand upon the 
sinner, and the angels hear him, saying — " I have 
found that which was lost ;" but what is seen on 
earth, is the sinner laying his believing hand on 
Christ, and men hear him crying — " I have found 
my deliverer. I w^ill go with Him, for salvation is 
with Him." But these are not two distinct 
things — they are involved the one in the other, 
so that you cannot take the one from the other 
without destroying both. How they are thus 
united we can no more tell than v>^e can explain 
how the soul resides in the body ; but the fact is 
patent. Jesus lays hold of the lost soul at the 
very moment when the sinner repents ; and so, if 
you wish Him to be your Saviour, you must turn 
in repentance from yourselves to Him, and give 
up every hope of salvation save in Him. 

But there is yet another aspect of this finding 
which must in nowise be lost sight of. I mean 
the tenderness of the shepherd. There is no 
stroke of anger inflicted on the sheep, there is no 
word of reproof addressed to it ; there is noth- 
ing but a soft caress, as, saying to it the while, 
'* poor thing, how far you have wandered, and how 
w^orn and weary you are," he lifts it upon his 



THE LOST SHEEP. 25 

shoulders, and carries it to the fold. So it is with 
Jesus and the sinner. The Saviour casteth not 
up to him his past iniquities. He doth not chide 
nor scold. " He upbraideth not." He doth not 
wound the penitent's heart by taunting reference 
to his former guilt, but he receive th him joyfully. 
He lets " the dead past bury its dead." He for- 
gets the past, and exults only in the happiness of 
having recovered that which was lost. Or, as 
the prophet Isaiah phrased it — " The bruised 
reed he doth not break ; the smoking flax he 
doth not quench." Tou need not be afraid of 
Him, O sinner ! He will receive you with de- 
light, and treat you with the utmost gentleness. 

IV. But I cannot conclude without referring, 
oven though it must be now in the briefest terms, 
to the joij manifested hy God over the sinner s 
return. " And when he cometh home, he calleth 
together his friends and neighbors, saying unto 
them, Kejoice with me ; for I have found my 
sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that like- 
wise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just 
persons which need no repentance." The home- 
coming here can hardly be identical with the 



26 THE LOST FOUND. 

finding of fclie lost one. It must rather, I think, 
be understood of the introduction of the saved 
one into heaven, by Jesus, at the last. Yet the 
joy over him is not delayed till then, though at 
that moment it becomes higher than before. Let 
me illustrate. You have lost your child, and one 
of the most trusted members of your family has 
set out in search of her. He is long away, and 
weary days and w^eeks you wait for news. At 
length, however, there comes from the great city 
or the far off continent a telegram from the seeker 
saying that he has found his sister, and that he 
is making arrangements for bringing her home as 
soon as possible. Of course, the mere receipt of 
his message gives you joy ; but when, at length, 
your loved one is brought home, that joy is in- 
tensified by the consciousness that sh6 is safe 
again in your embrace. Now, your gladness at the 
receipt of the telegram corresponds to the joy in 
heaven over the sinner's repentance, while your 
higher joy at the home-coming of your child is 
symbolical of the gladness which will be caused 
by the entrance into heaven of each new ran- 
somed spirit. Nor need we wonder at this joy. 
It is over a successful enterprise. It is over the 
deliverance of another soul from ruin. It is 



THE LOST SHEEP. 27 

over another added to tlie heavenly inhabitants. 
It is over another trophy of the Redeemer's 
power to save. It is over a fresh manifestation 
of the manifold wisdom of God. 

But why should there be more joy over the 
repenting sinner than over the unfallen angels ? 
Because there is greater delight in the recovery 
of that which has been in danger, than in the 
possession of that which has never been imper- 
illed. The mother knows this, as she looks 
with keenest interest on the child that has been 
drawn, like another Moses, from out the very 
river of death. The greater the peril we have 
encountered, the deeper the thrill of joy when 
we are brought safely through it. 

There is much to interest in the new-built ship. 
As the crowds gather round to see her launched, 
they hold their breaths awhile, until she shps 
in safety down into the element whereon she 
is henceforth to ride, and then they rend- the 
air with deafening cheers. That is joy — a true 
and real joy. 

But suppose a steamship that has left the port 
of Liverpool to cross the Atlantic, has not been 
heard of for many days after the date of her 
expected arrival here. Twenty-five or thirty- five 



28 THE LOST FOUND. 

days have gone, and still there are no tidings. 
Underwriters refuse to take another risk upon 
her. She is given up for lost, and the relatives 
of those who were on board go mourning as 
for the dead. As a forlorn hope, a government 
steamer is sent out to cruise about, if haply she 
may find the missing ship, and at length, when 
all expectation of seeing her again had been, 
abandoned, the news is told throughout the city 
that she has been telegraphed off Sandy Hook, 
and is coming up the Narrows in tow of the 
vessel which had gone to seek her. How ea- 
gerly would thronging multitudes crowd the 
wharves to see her as she came in ! How tears 
would mingle with their very cheers, and the joy 
would radiate out over all the land, calling forth 
gratitude from every heart. That too would be 
gladness, but oh hoAV much deeper, more thrilling, 
more intense than that which Avas over the vessel 
newly launched. Let the illustration dimly sha- 
dow forth to you the greater joy that is in 
heaven over a saved sinner, than over the nine- 
ty and nine who have never been imperilled. 

Such a joy, O sinner, you may occasion there. 
Eepent, therefore, even now, and as the news is 
told on high, a thrill of gladness will pour along 



THE LOST SHEEP. 29 

the ranks of the redeemed. The angehc hosts 
will share in the delight, and God Himself will 
own the rapture of the moment as he says, 
" Eejoice with me, for this my son was dead and 
is alive again ; he was lost and is found." 



THE LOST COIN. 



** Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, 
doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she 
find it ? 

•' And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors 
together, saying, Kejoice \^T.th me ; for I have found tlie piece which I had 
lost. 

*' Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of 
God over one sinner that repenteth." 

Luke, xv., 8-10. 



THE LOST COIN. 



The illustrations of some teachers, drawn as 
they are from the most recondite walks of science, 
need more explanation than the truths which they 
are intended to elucidate. But it w^as not so with 
those employed by Jesus. With a true poet's eye, 
He saw the beauty and spiritual significance of 
the commonest things ; and so the casual incidents 
of daily life, the ordinary objects of familiar ob- 
servation, as well as the habitual occupations of 
the household and the farm, were introduced by 
Him into His discourses in such a way as to cap- 
tivate the attention, instruct the intellects, and 
move the hearts of His hearers. Hence, over 
and above the spiritual truths which they were 
designed to expound, we have in many of His 
parables exact delineations of actual scenes in 
Eastern life ; while in that w'hich we have just 



34 THE LOST FOUND. 

read vre have a most realistic description of just 
such an occurrence as might have happened last 
week in any of our own homes. Nothing that I 
could say could bring either this woman or her 
work more vividly before you ; and any attempt 
to paraphrase the language in which they are 
here described would only end in a weak and 
watery dilution of the original production. Leav- 
ing it, therefore, to speak for itself, let us proceed 
to its interpretation. 

Like that which goes before it, and with which 
it is so closely connected, this parable was pri- 
marily intended to illustrate the fact, that there 
is joy in heaven over a repenting sinner, and so 
to reprove the Scribes and Pharisees for the scorn 
which they meant to express when they said of 
Jesus, " This man receiveth sinners, and eateth 
with them." It describes a loss, a search, a 
recovery, and a joy consequent thereon ; and in 
all these respects it is only a reproduction of 
the story of the bringing home of the lost sheep. 
But there are some things suggested here which 
did not come out in our treatment of the former 
parable, and to these we shall now restrict our- 
selves. They centre in these three things : the 



THE LOST COIN. 35 

thing lost, the means used for its recovery, and 
the kind of joy consequent on its being found, 

I. Look at the thing lost, and you will find sev- 
eral points of importance thereby suggested. 

It was a coin. That is to say, it was not simply 
a piece of precious metal, but that metal moulded 
and minted into money, bearing on it the king's 
image and superscription, and witnessing to his 
authority wherever it circulated. Ton remember 
how, when his enemies, seeking to entangle Jesus, 
asked whether it were lawful to give tribute to 
Ca3sar or no, He requested to see a coin ; and 
when one had been produced. He said. Whose is 
this image and superscription ? They repKed, 
Caesar's. Whereupon He said. Render unto Caesar 
the things which are Caesar's, and to God the 
things which are God's. Now, reading this para- 
ble in connection with that narrative, we think of 
this coin as stamped with the king's image, and 
designed not only for a medium of exchange, but 
also for a testimony to the royalty and right of 
him whose likeness was impressed upon it. What 
a beautiful thing is a new piece of money ! How 
sharply cut are the letters which are imprinted on 
it ! how finely relieved the likeness of the monarch 



36 THE LOST FOUND. 

and how clear and glittering its polished surface ! 
Can we fail to see in it a type of the human soul, 
when first it came, new-minted, from the Creator's 
hand ? It had enstamped upon it His image in 
knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and was 
designed by Him to be a willing witness-bearer to 
the rightfulness of His authority and the legiti- 
macy of His throne. He made man in His own 
image, after His own likeness ; and so it is not 
by any means a stretching of the figure here to 
see in this piece of money, as it was at first, a re- 
presentation of the soul's original dignity. 

But the coin ivas lost, and this suggests that in 
sinful man the image of his Maker has gone out of 
sight, and the great purpose of his being has 
been frustrated. For any good which the piece 
o.f money, so long as it was lost, did to its owner, 
or for any testimony which it gaye to the authori- 
ty of him whose image it bore, it might as well 
have been non-existent. And, similarly, the sin- 
ner does no good in the world ; he gives no glory 
to God ; he is of no service* to God, so far, at 
least, as the promotion of His honor, and the ac- 
knowledgment of His authority, are concerned. 
Instead of obeying God, he positively dishonors 
Him ; and in those parts of his nature on which, 



THE LOST COIN. 87 

more especially, God's image was impressed, he is 
emphatically lost to God. His intellect does not 
hke to retain God in its knowledge ; his heart has 
estranged its love from God ; and his life is de- 
Toted to another lord than his Creator. He is 
lost. 

Yet he is not absolutely worthless. The coin 
though lost, has still a value. If it can be re- 
covered, it will be worth as much as ever. It 
may be blackened with rust, or soiled with mud 
or covered over with dust, but it is still silver — 
nay, it is still minted silver, with traces of the 
superscription and the image that gave it cur- 
rency. Even so the human soul is valuable 
though lost. It has in it the silver of immortality ; 
and, depraved though it be, its intellectual powers, 
its moral freedom, its soaring ambition, and its 
upbraiding conscience, tell not only of its former 
grandeur, but also of its present importance. 
Even as he is, man is the most valuable being 
in the world. There is nothing equal to him, 
nothing almost which we can place second after 
him. There is a wide, yawning, impassable gulf 
between him and the highest of the lower an- 
imals. He has a dignity to which they can lay 
no claim. He has a character which is unique 



38 THE LOST FOUND. 

and peculiar to himself. In spite of ^* theories 
of development," and recent perverse efforts on 
the part of some to claim kindred with the ape, 
there is m every human being a moral conscious- 
ness that marks him man, and not brute, to- 
gether with such feelings after the future life 
as stamp him immortal; and this is the sil- 
ver of the coin that once bore the distinct 
and well-defined lineaments of Jehovah's im- 
age. 

But yet, again, this coin was lost in the house. 
The woman did not let it fall as she was crossing 
the wild and trackless moor, neither did she drop 
it into the unfathomed depths of ocean. Had 
she done so, she would never have thought of 
seeking for it ; she would have given it up as 
irrecoverable. But, knowing that it fell from her 
in the house, and, therefore, that it must have 
rolled away somewhere within its walls, she set 
about a vigorous search, sure that it could be 
found. Now, this points to the fact that the soul 
of the sinner is recoverable. It is capable of be- 
ing restored to its original dignity and honor. It 
has in it still, potentialities as great and glorious 
as those which ever belonged to it. There are 
many things which cannot be renewed. No hu- 



THE LOST COIN- 39 

man alchemy can bleacli into its original wliite- 
ness the blackened snow which has been trodden 
into miry slush upon the city streets ; no artistic 
ingenuity can replace upon the peach the downy 
softness of its skin when you have rubbed it off 
upon the ragged wall ; no manufacturing skill can 
restore to the violet the velvet softness of its leaf 
after it has been once crumpled up into many 
folds ; but the soul of man, even in its most be- 
sotted and depraved condition, is capable of be- 
ing renewed, and may yet become a pure and 
holy denizen of the heavenly homo. For " Who 
are these in white robes ? and whence came they ? 
They have washed their robes, and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb ;" they are souls 
renewed by the power of God's Spirit through 
the work of His Son. This lost coin, then, has 
a past history behind it, and a future bapabihty 
before it. Its past history bids us despise no fel- 
low-man, since, no matter v/hat may be the color 
of his skin, or the complexion of his character, 
there are yet traces of his old dignity upon 
him, letters of the superscription that once told 
whose image was impressed upon him. Its fu- 
ture capability bids us despair of no individual 
sinner ; for though he be lost to all that is no- 



40 THE LOST FOUND. 

ble, and lovely, and lioly, and divine, there is a 
possibility of his recovery. The coin has not 
fallen into the dark inaccessible mountain ravine, 
nor into the depths of the unfathomed sea, but it 
has gone amissing in the house, and so it may 
be found. The lost sinner may be recovered. 
Oo, then, ye whom Christ has found, and seek 
him ; nor count any labor too great, or any sac- 
rifice too costly, if only you may be able to add 
another gem to the Redeemer's crown. 

II. This brings me to the consideration of the 
search, wherein we have also some things sug- 
gested w^hich are peculiar to this parable. East- 
ern houses are constructed in such a way as to 
keep out the light and heat of the sun as much 
as possible. Thej^ have few windows, and even 
the few which they have are shaded with such 
lattice-work as tends to exclude, rather than ad- 
mit, the sunbeam. Hence the rooms are gener- 
ally dark ; and so, even if the coin were lost at 
noonday, the light of a candle would be re- 
quired to seek for it. 

Nor was there, in Eastern dwellings, the same 
scrupulous cleanliness that we love to see in 
many homes among ourselves. The floors were 



J 



THE LOST COIN. 41 

often covered with rushes, which, being changed 
only at rare intervals, collected a vast amount of 
dust and filth, among which a piece of money 
might be most readily lost. Hence the lighting 
of a candle and the sweeping of the house were 
the most natural things to be done in such a 
case. 

But whom does this woman represent ? and 
what, spiritually, are we to understand by the 
lighting of a candle and the sweeping of the 
house? The woman, in my judgment, symbol- 
izes the Holy Spirit. Mr. Arnot, indeed, in his 
valuable work upon the Parables, says that this 
view is untenable, alleging that, since the shep- 
herd who lost the sheep represents the Lord Je- 
sus Christ, the woman who lost the coin must 
represent Him too. But if this reasoning be 
worth anything, we must carry it further still, 
and affirm that the father who lost the son in 
the next parable represents the Lord Jesus. 
This, however, would be to contradict the uni- 
form tenor of the interpretation of that match- 
less story in all ages ; for every reader of it, 
not to say every writer on it, understands the 
earthly parent to typify and illustrate our Fa- 
ther who is in heaven. If, therefore, in the 



42 THE LOST FOUND. 

third parable, the loser is God the Father, and 
not the Lord Jesus Christ, we see no inconsis- 
tency in maintaining that the woman here must 
be understood as representing the Holy Spirit. 
Nay, rather, there is to our thinking a beauty 
and completeness in this interpretation that all 
others lose. That which was lost, whether we 
call it sheep, or coin, or son, was lost by the 
Godhead, and in these three parables we have 
brought before us a part, at least, of the work 
and office of each of the three Persons in the 
great plan of redemption. We took the leaving 
of the ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness, and 
the going after that which was lost, to signify 
the incarnation of Christ and all to which it 
led ; we shall take the prodigal's reception by 
his father to illustrate God's manner of welcom- 
ing a returning sinner ; and so, naturally, we un- 
derstand the woman here to represent the Holy 
Spirit ; and we look upon the means which she 
employed in her search for the lost coin as de- 
noting the efforts made by the Holy Spirit for 
the recovery of a lost soul. 

Now let us see what these were. She light- 
ed a candle, and swept the house, and searched 
diligently. The light most evidently represents 



THE LOST COIN. 4 



Q 



the truth ; but what are we to make of the 
sweeping ? Some would take it to illustrate the 
purifying work of the Holy Ghost in the heart. 
But that view cannot be maintained, since the 
purifying of the soul is not a work in order to, 
but rather subsequent upon, its first recovery. I 
take it rather, therefore, to represent that dis- 
turbance of settled opinions and practices — that 
turning of the soul, as it were, upside down — 
which is frequently seen as a forerunner of con- 
version ; that confusion and disorder occasioned 
by some providential dealing v/ith the man, such 
as personal illness, or business difficulties, or 
family bereavement, or the like, and which fre- 
quently issues in the coming of the soul to 
God ; for here also chaos often precedes crea-' 
tion. Truth introduced into the heart, and pro- 
vidential disturbances and unsettlements in order 
to its introduction — these are the things sym- 
bolized by the lighting of the candle and the 
sweeping of the house. 

The truth which the Holy Spirit employs for 
the purpose of conversion is the Word of God, 
all of which has been given to men by His own 
inspiration ; and the special portion of that Word 
which He uses for His saying work is the. won- 



44 THE LOST FOUND. 

drous story of the cross. " The truth as it is in 
Jesus " — the fact that " God so loved the world 
that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life" — the faithful saying, that 
" Christ Jesus came into the world to save shi- 
ners ;" — this is the light which He employs. 
No new revelations does He now bestow. He 
uses still this old gospel — the good news of sal- 
vation through Him who died for our offences, 
and rose again for our justification. In one 
word, the truths which centre in the cross of 
Calvary, are those which the Spirit employs in 
the conversion of men. It was so on the day of 
Pentecost ; it has been so in every period of 
true spiritual revival ; it has been so in every in- 
dividual conversion. They say that in some of 
our large millinery establishments many needles 
are lost in the course of the day ; and that in 
seeking to recover them, instead of going down 
upon the carpet and wearifully picking each one 
up, a young woman goes round at night, holding 
a magnet near the floor, attracting thereby every 
minutest particle of steel, and so recovering all. 
So, in seeking to regain lost souls, the Holy 
Spirit goes through the world employiDg the mag- 



THE LOST COIN. 45 

net of the cross ; everywhere, He seeks to draw 
men to Himself by the attraction of its love, 
and constrains them to live by the faith of Him 
who loved them and gave Himself for them. 

But not all at once do men attend to, and be- 
lieve, this truth of the gospel. The magnet will 
operate wherever there are no neutralizing ele- 
ments near ; but while the soul is sunk in depra- 
vity, or engaged in worldly pursuits, or absorbed 
in earthly pleasures, it feels not the charm of the 
Redeemer's love. Hence means must be used to 
destroy the counter-attractions of the world, 
w^hich keep men from God. Or, taking the figure 
of my text, if the light of the candle fall immedi- 
ately upon the coin, the seeker will at once pick 
it up ; but if the piece of money have dropped on 
a riish-covered floor, and lie concealed beneath 
the straw and the debris of weeks, these must be 
removed before the rays of the candle can reveal 
the coin. That is to say, in plainer language, 
men do not usually attend to the truth at once. 
They are pre-occupied with business ; they are 
engrossed in other things, and the Bible remains 
beside them unread ; the good news of the gos- 
pel are uncared-for and unbelieved. But then 
comes the sweeping of the house. There are pro- 



46 THE LOST FOUND. 

vidential disturbances in business ; or there are 
family bereavements ; or there is personal sick- 
ness ; or there is the awakening of conscience to 
a sense of guilt, by the hearing of some solemn 
discourse, or, as the result of some other of the 
manifold expedients which God the Holy Spirit 
can employ, there is a general upturning of the 
soul, like the confusion that is created in the home 
by the annual house-cleaning ; and just as, at 
these yearly lustrations, a great many things, 
which had been neglected for a long while, come 
forth into prominence, and compel you to settle 
what you will do with them ; so, in the soul's dis- 
turbance, the long-buried questions about sin and 
salvation come up, and the man begins to cry, 
What must I do to he saved ? Then as some 
Evangelist by his side exclaims, " Believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt he saved,'^ he 
turns in faith to Jesus ; and that moment, the 
candle's beams falling upon the piece which was 
lost, the Holy Spirit finds and rejoices over the 
recovered soul. 

Tou see then, the meaning of this seeking and 
sweeping : every time you are brought face to 
face with trial ; every providential unsettlement 
that comes upon you ; or, to use Jeremiah's ex- 



THE LOST COIN. 47 

pression, every " emptying out from vessel to ves- 
sel " to which you are subjected, is a new sweep- 
ing of the house by the Holy Spirit seeking for 
the recovery of your soul. Has He sought you 
yet in vain ? Oh, let him seek so no longer ; but 
through this discourse, describing to you your in- 
dividual history and circumstances, and quicken- 
ing anew your conscience, let Him find jou now, 
as with devout repentance you exclaim, " Lord, I 
believe ; help thou mine unbelief !" 

III. We come now, in the third place, to look 
at the joy over the recovered coin ; and here, as 
before, we shall restrict ourselves to that which is 
peculiar to this parable. In the story of the lost 
sheep, while the social character of the joy is cer- 
tainly referred to, the specialty in the gladness of 
the shepherd over its finding lay in the fact, to 
which prominence is given in the appended note 
of interpretation, that it was greater than over 
the ninety and nine which had never strayed. 
Here, however, the peculiarity is in the sociality 
of the joy. The woman, when she had found 
her money, " called together her friends and neigh- 
bors, saying. Rejoice with me ; for I have found 
the piece which I had lost." This is peculiarly 



48 THE LOST POUND. 

true to Eastern life. Even to this day, as I have 
been informed by one who is well acquainted 
with the domestic habits of the people of Pales- 
tine, the jewels of a Syrian woman consist for 
the most part of pieces of money. They are her 
own exclusive property which her husband may not 
claim, and having descended to her as heirlooms 
from her mother, they are handed down by her to 
her daughters. They are commonly worn tied in 
the hair, the larger pieces generally hanging from 
the ends of the braids. Thus one falling out of 
the hair, might be very readily lost ; while as it 
formed a part of the dowry of the woman, in 
which all her descendants had an interest as well 
as she, we can easily see how its loss and re- 
covery would be almost equally affecting to them 
all. It was quite natural, therefore, for an Eastern 
woman to call for her female friends to rejoice 
with her over the finding of one of her treasured 
heirlooms. But gladness everywhere is diffusive. 
We cannot have the highest kind of joy if we must 
keep it to ourselves. There are certain sorrows 
which must find vent in tears, else death will ensue 
to the individual ; and in this connection every one 
remembers the words in Tennyson's fine song, 
'' She must weep, or she will die." But there is 



THE LOST COIN. 49 

the same thing at the other extremity. There 
are. joys which, if we may not utter them, cease 
to be joys, and which, if we cannot share them 
with others, will seriously injure ourselves. The 
pent-up emotion will choke us; but the utterance 
of it to others, and the making of them par- 
takers of our gladness, renders it safe for us, and 
in the end not only makes them happier, but 
makes, our own hearts more joyful. Every reader 
of ancient history remembers the Heureka of 
Archimedes; and each individual can tell of 
times in his own experience when, eager for an 
opportunity to utter his gladness, he has gone 
long miles to make it known to those, who, he 
knew, would be sure to rejoice with him. 

But, in this respect, man is but the far-off 
image of God. His joy also, if I may dare to use 
the words, needs society to make it complete; 
and the fact that there are those beside Him to 
whom He can make known the story of each re- 
covered soul, redoubles His own gladness, and dif- 
fuses among them His own divine delight. We 
know not, indeed, with certainty, who these are 
in heaven, who are here symbolized by the friends 
and neighbors of the woman — whether they be 
the unf alien angels, or pure beings, summoned 



50 THE LOST FOUND. 

from other worlds, that they may hear the mar- 
vellous history which centres in this planet, 
earth ; but, whoever they may be, they enter into 
the feelings of the Most High, and the utterance 
of their congratulations is the occasion of the 
highest happiness of Deity. Nor let it be sup- 
posed that this is a mere fanciful idea, for which 
there is no foundation in Scripture apart from 
the teaching of this parable. What says Paul — 
" God hath created all things by Jesus Christ : to 
the intent that now, unto the principalities and 
powers in heavenly places, might be known through 
the Church the manifold wisdom of God." (Eph. 
iii. 10.) Now, these words mean, if they mean 
anything at all, that through the Church, God 
designed to show to principalities and powers in 
heavenly places His manifold wisdom. In the 
manifestation of this wisdom God has His high- 
est work, and, in its appreciation by spiritual in- 
telligences, through the Church of Christ, He has 
His greatest joy. Farther than this I dare not 
go ; but up to this point we must advance, if at 
least we would rightly interpret this delightful 
parable. 

Now, strictly speaking, my present work is 
done. I have shown you as clearly and succinctly 



THE LOST COIN. 51 

as possible, what I judge to be the special teach- 
ings of this story; but I cannot conclude with- 
out giving prominence to two thoughts which 
may be of some practical value to us all. 

In the first place I remind you of the possibility 
of the recovery of any soul. There is no one 
one beyond hope. No sinner need despair of 
himself, and no worker in the service of Jesus 
need despair of the conversion of any one for 
whose recovery he is ardently praying and ear- 
nestly working. However depraved or degraded 
a man may be, he is not beyond hope so long 
as the truth of the Gospel may be proclaimed 
in his hearing. I cannot put this thought more 
strikingly than it has been presented in the fol- 
lowing lines, selected from the poem entitled 
" Beautiful Snow," especially when they are read 
in the light of the interesting history which has 
been told, with what truth I know not, in con- 
nection with them. *' In the early part of the 
American war, one dark Saturday morning, there 
died in the Commercial Hospital, Cincinnati, a 
young woman, over whose head only two and 
twenty summers had passed. She had once 
been possessed of an enviable share of beauty ; 
but, alas ! upon her fair brow had long been 



52 THE LOST FOUND. 

written the terrible word, Fallen. Among lier 
personal effects was found, in manuscript, the 
" Beautiful Snow," which was immediately car- 
ried to a gentleman of culture and literary taste, 
who was at that time Editor of the /'National 
Union." In the columns of that paper, on the 
morning following the girl's death, the poem ap- 
peared in print for the first time." It is all ex- 
quisite, but for my present purpose, I give only 
these three verses : 



Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, 
Fell like the snow, but from heaven to hell ; 
Fell to be trampled, as filth of the street ; 
Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on, and beat ; 
Pleading, — cursing, — dreading to die, 
Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; 
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread ; 
Hating the hving, and fearing the dead. 
Merciful God ! Have I fallen so low ? 
And yet I was once like the beautiful snow ! 

Once I was fair as the beautiful snow, 
With an eye Hke a crystal, a heart like its glow ; 
Once I was loved for my innocent grace — 
Flattered and sought for the charms of my face ! 

Father, — mother, — sisters, — all, 
God and myself I have lost by my fall ; 
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by 



THE LOST COIN. 53 

Will make a wide sweep, lest I wander too nigh ; 

For all that is on or about me I know, 

There is nothing that's pure as the beautiful snow. 

******* 

Helpless and foul as the trampled snow, 
Sinner, despair not ! Christ stoopeth low 
To rescue the soul that is lost in sin, 
And raise it to life and enjoyment again. 

Groaning, — bleeding, — dying, for thee, 
The Crucified hung on the cursed tree ! 
His accents of pity fall soft on thine ear. 
** Is there mercy for me ? Will He heed my weak prayer ? 
O God ! in the stream that for sinners did flow 
Wash me ! and I shall be whiter than snow." 

Take to thyself, O sinner, the message of these 
lines, and make for thyself the prayer with which 
they conclude. No matter how aggravated thine 
iniquities have been, or how deeply depraved thy 
spirit may be, there is mercy for thee. Thou 
mayest yet be forgiven and renewed, if only thou 
wilt trust in Him who is " able to save unto the 
uttermost all that come unto God by Him." 

Finally, let me once more insist upon the truth, 
that the most God-Kke work in which any one 
can engage is that of seeking to save the lost. 
Look, again, at the teachings of this chapter. In 
the first parable we have the Divine Son, the 



54 THE LOST FOUND. 

Good Shepherd, coming into the world after the 
lost sheep ; in the second, as we have just seen, 
we have the Divine Spirit putting forth His 
agency for the recovery of sinful souls ; and, in 
the third, we have the Divine Father welcoming, 
in the fullness of infinite tenderness, the returning 
penitent. Are we wrong, then, when from these 
things we deduce the inference, that the great 
work and happiness of Godhead are connected 
with the salvation of lost souls ? But if this be 
so, it will follow that man is then likest God, and 
most really a partaker of His happiness, when He 
is seeking to save the lost. Do you want to be, in 
the highest sense, a fellow-laborer with God ? do 
you wish to be a sharer of the loftiest joy 
which even Deity can know ? Then go forth to 
seek and to sate that which was lost. Care not 
what sacrifices it may involve, or what discom- 
forts it may entail upon you. Never mind, 
though it may require you to go to dens of in- 
famy or haunts .of sin. These are not so far be- 
neath you as this evil world was beneath the 
Eternal Son of God ; neither are they anything 
like so far removed from your refinement of na- 
ture, as this world was from His infinite purity. 
Go, and He will take care of you, and give you 



THE LOST COIN. 55 

success. Were some fashionable lady to drop her 
diamond ring into the gutter, she would not scru- 
ple to thrust her ungloved hand into the filthy 
sewage, if thereby she might recover her precious 
ornament ; and shall not we expose ourselves, if 
need be, to contact with moral and spiritual im- 
purity, if only we may be instrumental in recov- 
ering the immortal jewel of a human soul, and re- 
storing it to its Creator's hand ? The great nov- 
elist has no more touching or pathetic chapter 
in his voluminous writings than that which tells 
how the big, burly, honest sailor set out from his 
boat-house on the Yarmouth shor-e, to seek for 
her who had been ruined by the villain whom he 
took to be his friend ; and when we shall feel 
about lost sinners as he did about her ; when we 
shall go forth in a search for them as earnest, as 
long, and as persistent as was his, we shall begin 
to be disciples indeed, and shall know something 
of the joy that is in heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth. Earth has no happiness like to his 
who is instrumental in finding the piece that was 
lost, and restoring it to its Heavenly Owner. 
May God give us more of this celestial happi- 
ness! 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



I. 

THE DEPARTURE 



«* And he said, A certain man had two sons : 

*' And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the por- 
tion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 

*« And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and 
took his journey intd a iar country, «nd there wasted his substance with 
riotous living. 

*' And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land ; 
and he Jeg.an to be in want. 

*'Andhe went and joined himself to a citizen of that country ; and he 
sent him into his fields to feed swine. 

" And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine 
did. eat ; and no man gave unto him." 

LusE, XV., 11-16. 



THE PRODIGAL SO^^ 



THE DEPAKTURE. 

Not without many misgivings do I venture on 
the exposition of this parable. It is in itself so 
perfect, as holding up the mirror to nature, that I 
am afraid to touch it, lest I should dim its sur- 
face by defiling fingers ; and its main teachings 
are so clearly defined, that I fear lest, in seeking 
to explain and enforce them, I should prove to be 
like that commentator on the " Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress " whose notes were harder to be understood 
than the original allegory. Nevertheless, as it is 
a necessary appendix to, and completion of, the 
truth portrayed in those which I have already 
considered, I am constrained to enter upon its 
examination ; and my prayer is, that the Spirit of 
Him who spake it may rest upon me while I seek 



60 THE LOST FOUND. 

to illustrate it, and may keep me from saying any- 
thing that may mar its force, overlay its beauty, 
or destroy its pathos. 

Like those by which it is preceded, it was de- 
signed to rebuke the cold-hearted and self-right- 
eous exclusivehess of the Scribes and Pharisees, 
and to show them that, in despising Jesus for re- 
ceiving sinners and eating with them, they were 
altogether out of harmony with Him who rejoic- 
eth over one sinner that repenteth. But it differs 
from them in that, while they illustrate the man- 
ner in which God seeks the lost sinner, it de- 
scribes the result of that search in the voluntary 
return of the sinner himself. They view the mat- 
ter from the Divine side, and let us see the efforts 
which God has put forth in the incarnation of His 
Son, and the agency of His Spirit, to find and 
save that which has been lost. This regards the 
subject from the human side, and shows us the 
sinner rising from his degradation and returning 
to his Father. Yet they are not so much two se- 
parate and distinct things, as two sides of one and 
the same thing. Admirably has Mr. Arnot said 
here, " It is not that some of fallen human kind 
are saved after the manner of the strayed sheep, 
and others after the manner of the prodigal son ; 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 61 

not that the Saviour bears one wanderer home 
by His power, and that another of his own ac- 
cord arises and returns to the Father. Both 
these processes are accompUshed in every conver- 
sion. The man comes, yet Christ brings him ; 
Christ brings him, yet he comes." The Spirit 
sweeps the house and finds him ; yet he himself 
of his own free choice arises and goes fco his 
Father. 

Again, in the two preceding parables, little or 
nothing is said as to the sinner's departure from 
God, and his misery and degradation in his lost 
condition. The main points which they illustrate 
are the seeking, the finding, and the joy resulting 
from the recovery. The loss which they describe 
is rather a loss sustained, if I may so say, by De- 
ity ; and scarcely any hint is given of that which 
is incurred by the sinner himself. Here, however, 
the misery of man away from God, and in the 
far land of sin, is set in the forefront ; and no- 
where in the whole range of literature, whether 
sacred or profane, have we a more vivid exempli- 
fication of the awful truth, that " the way of trans- 
gressors is hard." 

In the episode of the elder brother, too, we 
have something unique and peculiar to this par- 



62 THE LOST FOUND. 

able. In the former allegories there is no jarring 
or dissonant note in the chorus of rejoicing over 
the recovery of that which was lost; but here, 
that in the mirror which Jesus held up, the 
Scribes and Pharisees might see their own like- 
ness as well as His, we have one surly and sour 
dissentient, who virtually saj-s to his Father, 
what they had said to Jesus, " Wilt thou receive 
a sinner and eat with him ?" 

But, without lingering longer on the mere out- 
lines of the story, let us look at the incidents 
w^hich it records. We are introduced into a fa- 
mily whose home, for anything that appears to 
the contrary, may have been in some sweet ru- 
ral retreat, with every added accessory of com- 
fort and enjoyment. There is a father and two 
grown-up sons, and for a time all is happiness 
and harmony. But at length, weary of the mo- 
notony of the country ; or chafing under the 
sense of restraint which the father's, presence 
created ; or moved by that spirit of adventure 
and desire to see life and the world, which most 
lads feel in the opening days of manhood ; or 
perhaps wishing merely to do for himself, to 
make his own way, and to secure his own inde- 
pendence, the younger son desires to go away. 



THE PKODIGAL SON. 63 

He has talked of it often before, but his mother 
has always won him over by her affection ; and 
for her sake he has consented to stay yet 
awhile. Now, however, the fever is in his veins 
again. Go he must, and shall. So, as the less 
of two evils, his father gives him a proper out- 
fit, and in the most handsome manner, antici- 
pating the division of his property that would 
be made in any case at his death, he bestows 
upon him his portion. The farewells are soon 
said, and away he goes. He is bound for a far 
land — the El Dorado of his dreams, where mo- 
ney is to be made, and greatness is to be 
achieved, and whence, perchance, he hopes to re- 
turn, in the evening of his days, a nabob, rolling 
in wealth, the envy of every beholder. That was 
the ideal before him ; but, ah ! how different was 
the reality ; when he reached his destination, in- 
deed, everything looked bright, and it was his in- 
tention to do well. Had anybody then lifted the 
veil of the future, and "shown him himself as he 
was so soon to be, all tattered and filthy, in the 
swine-herd's den, he would have shrunk back 
aghast, and shuddered as he cried, " Impossi- 
ble !" And, doubtless, if it had required only a 
single step to bring him to that degradation, that 



64 THE LOST FOUND. 

single step would never have been taken. But 
thus in all likelihood it happened. He became 
connected with evil companions ; they led him 
gradually into wicked courses ; and so long as he 
had money to spend with them, they were assidu- 
ous in their attentions, and superlative in their 
flattery. When, however, his means ran done 
they left him to himself. Famine arose, and, to 
keep himself from starvation, he went and joined 
himself to — or, as the words might perhaps be 
better rendered, he glued "^ himself to, or, he fast- 
ened himself, upon — a wealthy citizen, who sent 
him to herd his swine ; and such was the extrem- 
ity to which he was reduced, that he would glad- 
ly have fed from the trough from which they ate, 
or on the pods of the carob-tree by which they 
were fattened. 

Think that to a Jew the swine was an unclean, 
abhorred animal, and then you will have some 
faint idea of the degradation which, in the esti- 
mation of His hearers, Jesus here portrays. But 
have we nothing like this in our own land, and in 
our own day ? Who has not known some youth 
who has come from the country to one of our 

* The old Scotch word to "sorn" uiDon one, seems to me to 
be the exact equivalent of the original here. 



THE PEODIGAL SON. 65 

large towns, and gone through just such a career? 
He has left behind him a pious father and a pray- 
ing mother, and come with high hopes of success 
in life to some of our great offices, that he may fit 
himself for after eminence. But his fellows 
laugh at • his countrified manners, and ridicule 
what they call his old-fashioned scruples, until, at 
length, weary of their scorn, and worn out by 
their importunity, he goes with them to their 
haunts of sin. He learns to like strong drink, 
and quaffs his beer at every hour of the day. He 
frequents the theatre, and counts it a high honor 
to have the entree into the green-room, and to be 
on terms of familiality with those who act upon 
the stage. He is easily led on after all this to 
lascivious indulgence ; or, mayhap, he keeps his 
betting-book, and begins to talk oracularly about 
this or that " event ;" but when the settling-day 
comes round, he finds that he has hopelessly in- 
volved himself in debts, misnamed of honor, 
which he cannot meet. His master's money is at 
his command, and his emergency constitutes an 
apparent necessity, which he does not care to 
resist. He uses that with which for other pur- 
poses he had been entrusted. He absconds ; is 
hunted by detectives, and, hemmed round by tel- 



66 THE LOST FOUND. 

egraj)liic wires on every side, he is soon appre- 
hended and brought back, hke Eugene Aram, 
" with gyves upon his wrists." Then, after stand- 
ing in the prisoner's dock, disgraced in the very 
city in which he had dreamed of winning honor, 
he is led away to the degradation of the peni- 
tentiary, or the drudgery of convict labor. Or, if 
the issue be not such as I have described, it mav 
be something equally repulsive. He may become 
a habitual drunkard, sacrificing everything to an 
abominable appetite ; or, worse even than that, he 
may develop into a contemptible " black-leg," 
preying upon the unsuspicious, and making him- 
self jackal to some gambling haunt, until, at 
length, stabbed in some deadly quarrel, or mad- 
dened by the delirium of intemperance, he goes 
to his own place, unwept, save by the mother, 
who, hearing of the tragedy in her far-off home, 
WTings her hands, and cries, " O my son ! my 
son ! would God I had died for thee ! my son ! 
my son !" For remember, it is not every prodi- 
gal's iistory that has the issue of this parable, 
and in many, many instances the grave comes 
only to cover, with its dark green pall, the more 
dreadful experiences that lie beyond. It may 
seem, indeed, aside from the main line of spirit- 



THE PKODIGAL SON. 6? 

ual exposition to dwell upon sucli things as these; 
and strictly speaking, so it is. But I am looking 
now at the parable, not as an allegory, but as a 
literal narrative which it may well enough have 
been. And it is not aside from my 'jnission as a 
minister, especially in a large community like this, 
to bring out strongly and broadly the danger of 
such practices as those to which I have alluded. 
I might fortify my remarks, and vindicate the 
dark picture which I have drawn, by many sad 
examples taken from the records of our various 
courts ; but I prefer to give you one or two cases 
which have passed under my own observation. I 
have seen, sitting shoeless and shirtless on a cab, 
' joining himself to ' the driver, if haply he might 
get anything out of him, a young man who had 
inherited a large fortune, who had been in the 
same classes with me at school, and who had sat 
as a student for the ministry on the same benches 
with me at College. I have visited in a Liver- 
pool prison where he was under sentence of six 
months' imprisonment for stealing a watch, which 
he had pawned for drink, a man who was an 
M.A. of a Scottish University, and who had been 
Principal of a College in a foreign land. I have 
had, as a beggar at my door, a man of my own 



68 THE LOST FOUND. 

age, brought up in the same street with me, who 
had squandered a large patrimony in such courses 
as I have described ; and as I saw the grey hair 
of his premature old age streaming in the wind, 
and heard him call me by the old familiar name 
of my boyhood, as he besought me for assist- 
ance, I could not but think of these words, " And 
when he had spent all, there arose a mighty fa- 
mine in the land, and he began to be in want." 

Similar cases, I feel confident, have been wit- 
nessed by almost all before me who have attained 
to middle life ; and with such occurrences in my 
remembrance, I cannot allow the present oppor- 
tunity to pass without uttering a few words of 
warning to those young people here who have 
only recently left the home of their childhood for 
the hfe of the great city, or who have passed 
from the routine of the school, to the stir, and 
activity, and temptations of modern business. 
Two things I would especially urge : 
Beware of evil companions. Wait till you see 
w^hat is in men before you trust yourselves to 
them. Do not allow yourselves to be led away 
by appearances. Soft speeches, flattering words, 
a winning .manner, and an artless way, may all bo 
assumed only the better to decoy you. Distrust 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 69 

all those who would ridicule to you the sanctity 
and associations of home. Have no confidence 
in any one who would endeavor to shake your 
faith in the Scriptures, or attempt to lead you 
away from the observance of the Sabbath, and the 
enjoyment of the sanctuary. Do not permit your- 
selves to be moved from your convictions by the 
swagger or the ridicule of any one. Have faith 
in God, have faith in yourself, and cultivate the 
friendship of those only who are the friends of 
Jesus. Seek to find friends in the church. Call 
upon and cultivate the acquaintance of your min- 
ister. Lay yourself out for work in connection 
with the congregation which you wish to join, and 
thus you will find resources for the spending of 
those leisure hours which have so much to do with 
making or marring the life-history of every man. 
I know that you will say, in response to all this, 
" Yes, it is very good ; but then congregations are 
so exclusive that one may attend a church regu- 
larly for months, and no one speak to him." Now, 
to a certain extent, I admit the truth of your 
words ; and I would say to the members of this 
church, that it is a sacred duty which they owe 
to Jesus, to show interest in all who come thus, 
strangers and unbefriended, into the midst of us. 



70 THE LOST FOUND. 

"Who can tell but that some youth, who has been 
worshipping here for weeks, and has since gone 
into evil courses, might have been led upwards in- 
stead, if some of us had only taken him by the 
hand ? When your own children go away from 
you to a strange place, you will count it the high- 
est favor that could be shown to you if some 
Christian friend will but open his heart to them. 
As ye would, therefore, that men should do to 
you, do ye even so now to them ; and, for the 
sake of the parents who are praying far away, 
show kindness to the children, who are strangers 
here. But while I frankly admit the exclusive- 
ness of modern church life, and bitterly bewail it, 
I would say also to my young friend who is a 
stranger, There may be a good deal of the same 
exclusiveness in yourself. If you make no ad- 
vances, you can scarcely wonder if no advances 
are made to you ; and, in general, I am sure of 
this, that if you will only offer your services for 
Christian work, and get in among the active peo- 
ple in the church — in Sunday-school operations, 
or in those of any of the other associations — you 
will soon feel yourself at home. Your heart will 
get a local centre, and you will become so inter- 



THE PEODiaAL SON. 71 

ested in higher things that the temptations of the 
city will cease to charm you. 

But, as a second advice, I would say. Beware 
of evil habits. Easily learned, they are most diffi- 
cult to be overcome. At first slender as " the 
spider's most attenuated thread," they thicken 
round us into cords by which we are bouDd into 
the most utter helplessness. No slavery may for 
one moment be compared to that of the man who 
is the servant of his lusts, and the victim of per- 
nicious habits. Withstand beginnings, therefore. 
" Look not on the wine when it is red in the cup." 
nor let your strength be eaten out of you by its 
bewitching influence. There is a coiled adder at 
the bottom of the steaming bowl, and, however it 
may be concealed at first, it will " at the last " 
sting you into spiritual death. Hear the confes- 
sion of one of the finest of English Essayists, who 
unhappily knew from experience only too well the 
degradation which he describes, and take the 
warning which he cries to you out of his depths : 
" The waters have gone over me. But out of the 
black depths, could I be heard, I would cry to all 
those who have but set afoot in the perilous flood. 
Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first 
wine is delicious as the opening scenes of hfe, or 



72 THE LOST POUND. 

the entering upon some newly-discoYered Para- 
dise, look into my desolation, and be made to un- 
derstand what a dreary thing it is when a man 
shall feel himself going down a precipice with 
open eyes and a passive will ; to see his destruc- 
tion, and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel 
it all the v/ay emanating from himself ; to per- 
ceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet 
not be able to fix a time w^hen it was otherwise ; 
to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own 
self-ruin ; could he see my fevered eye, feverish 
with last night's drinking, and feverishly-looking 
for this night's repetition of the folly ; could he 
feel the body of the death out of which I cry 
hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be de- 
livered, — it were enough to make him dash the 
sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of 
its mantling temptation — to make him clasp his 

teeth, 

* And not undo them, 
To suffer wet damnation to run through them.' "* 

Alas ! poor Lamb ; may thy words to-day prove 
words of power to every one of us ! 

But intemperance is not the only evil habit of 

* See Essays of Elia : The Confessions of a Drunkard. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 73 

which you need to have a care. Flee youthful 
lusts. Keep yourselves pure ; for sensuality, too, 
lays a deep hold upon the man, and drags him 
down to utter loathsomeness. One who spake 
from his own life-history has said regarding it, 
that it '^ hardens a' within, and petrifies the feel- 
ing." It poisons the imagination of a man, cor- 
rupts his heart, and depraves his entire nature ; 
so that -though he may, to the shame of all socie- 
ty, retain his place in the most fashionable circles, 
and be courted by parents for the daughters of 
their home, the sensualist is ever the most selfish 
of mortals, having the passions of an animal, 
while the conscience which should restrain them 
is hardened into insensibility and impotence. 

Be on your guard, too, against the seductions 
of gambling. Do not bet even " the thousandth 
part of one poor scruple " upon any event, 
whether it be the issue of a game, or the winning 
of a race, or the rolling of a ball. Say not to me 
that you do so only for a small amount : the prin- 
ciple is the same, whether the stake be a cent or 
a thousand dollars. It is by littles that the habit 
is acquired ; yet when it has obtained the mas- 
tery I question if there be one other passion 
which so absorbs and overpowers the soul as that 



74 THE LOST FOUND. 

of betting ; and in these days, when among the 
" old nobiUtv " of Great Britain the fortunes of 
dukedoms and the estates of earls have been gam- 
bled away ; when the youth of our commercial 
cities are staking right and left upon politicians 
and pugilists, and upon dogs and horses, and 
when even in our exchanges so much of what is 
called business is as really gambling as anything 
you will see at Homburg or Wiesbaden, it is sure- 
ly time to call a halt. Go not, I beseech you, 
in these ways of iniquity : the gate may be wide, 
the path may be flowery, and, for a time, pros- 
perity may seem to attend you ; but it leads down- 
ward, and its end is death. Enter not through the 
gate, therefore, but " stand ye in the ways, and 
see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good 
way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest unto 
your souls." 

Thus far I have been deahng with this story 
as if it were only a literal narrative ; and I could 
not, with any justice to my own feelings, or any 
proper fidelity to you, withhold from you the 
lessons which, even from this aspect of it, we may 
learn. But we should greatly mistake its mean- 
ing if we should restrict its reference to those who 
are accounted prodigals by their fellow-men. It 



rHE.PEODIGAL SON. 75 

has a spiritual significance underlying its external 
incidents ; and, thus viewed, every man is a prod- 
igal. God is the Father v/hom we have left ; sin 
is the far land into which we have wandered ; and 
the famine pictured in these verses is but a faint 
delineation of the spiritual desolation to which 
we have reduced ourselves by our iniquity. This, 
which is the interpretation proper of the first por- 
tion of the parable, I will try to put before you 
briefly ere I close. 

I. Here is, first, tlie nature of sin. It is a de- 
parture from our Heavenly Father — a determina- 
tion to be independent of God — a taking of the 
ordering of our lives into our own hands — a chaf- 
ing under the restraints alike of the Divine law 
and the Divine love, and a setting up of ourselves 
as our own gods. Cunningly did Satan say to 
our common parents at the first — " Ye shall be as 
God, knowing good and evil ;" and still this self- 
assertion lies at the root of our alienation of 
heart from God, and rebellion of life against 
Him. 

But yet more, this alienation of heart is from a 
Father ; this rebellion is against One who has 
done more for us than ever mother did for the son 



76 THE LOST FOUND. 

of lier love. I know no more toucliing exposi- 
tion of God's Fatherhood than that which this 
parable furnishes. Some, indeed, will hare it that 
not until Jesus was revealed as the eternal Son, 
did God declare Himself the Father of any one 
in our human nature. But this opinion will not 
stand before such a parable as that w^hich we are 
now considering. I willingly allow that only 
through Jesus Christ does God now, consistently 
with His personal honor and righteous adminis- 
tration, receive sinners back again as sons into 
His home. But surely, in the relationship be- 
tween the prodigal and his father, here, we have 
a type of that which existed between God and 
man before the fall. If this be not so, then, for 
any significance that lies in the phrase, you might 
as well have read, " A certain king had two sub- 
jects ;" or " A certain master had two servants." 
But if you so read, you take away the whole pith 
and pathos of the story. Hence we cannot but 
think that here we have a reference to God's ori- 
ginal fatherly relationship to the human race. 
Now this, while it explains why He was so anx- 
ious to get His lost children back, and gives them 
such a welcome when they do return, does also, 
from the other side of it, deepen the guilt of the 



THE PRODIGAL SON, 77 

sinner. His offence is not merely that of disobe- 
dience to a master, or treason against a king, but 
it is, in combination with both of these, ingr^tti- 
tude to a Father. We condemn, as the most cul- 
pable of all things, the cruelty of a son to his 
renerable parent : and we have scarcely language 
strong enough to express our detestation of such 
conduct as that of Absalom to his father. Yet, in 
God's sight, we have been doing the very same 
thing, and we have given him occasion to say 
concerning us, as Israel of old, "Hear, O heav- 
ens, and give ear, O earth ; for the Lord hath 
spoken. I have nourished and brought up child- 
ren, and they have rebelled against me." 

U, But, secondly, we have here brought before 
us the consequences of sin. The first stage of ini- 
quity is riotous joy. We must not keep that out 
of view. There is a pleasure in it, of a sort ; 
for if this were not so, men would not be found 
indulging in it at all. There must be some kind 
of exhilaration in the flowing bowl, or in the 
wild thrill of sensual gratification, or in the gains 
of dishonesty. In every sin there is something of 
riot. ''Stolen waters are sweet," perhaps, just 
because they are stolen ; but the sweetness does 



78 THE LOST FOUND. 

not last long. It turns to bitterness in the belly ; 
for, see, as the next result, the tuaste loMcli it occa- 
sions. It wastes money, as we have to-day al- 
ready remarked ; it wastes health ; it wears the 
body to decay ; but that is not the worst. These 
things here are set forth as but the outward indi- 
cations of the waste of the soul. And, in truth, 
what a blasting thing sin is on the human spirit ! 
How many who, in their youth, gave high prom- 
ise of mental greatness, are now reduced to the 
merest drivellers, unable either to speak or write 
save under the influence of opium or alcohol \ 
Ah ! even as I speak, there rise up before me the 
fair forms of many noble fellows who, humanly 
speaking, might have counted on the highest po- 
sitions in their several profession, but whose in- 
tellects have been weakened by their own enor- 
mities. Then, morally, how does sin blight the 
conscience, eating it out of the man, until he is 
ready for any iniquity ! How it weakens the will, 
so that he who once stood firm as the oak against 
all storms, bends now like a reed before the most 
trifling breeze ! Never will I forget how a wife, 
speaking once of the weakness of her husband's 
will before the fascination of drink and evil com- 
panions, said : " He used to be a firm and noble 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 79 

fellow ; but lie is a bairn noo." Tes, a child in 
weakness ; but, alas ! alas ! very far indeed from 
being a child in innocence. Sin had shorn the 
locks of his strength ; and the Philistines, in the 
shape of his own appetites, had bound him cap- 
tive. Where has the father's portion gone in such 
cases ? Where are the good gifts of God to the 
soul now ? And who, in sinners like these, can 
discern almost the faintest trace of the image of 
God which once they bore ? 

But observe, farther, as the next consequence, 
we have famine — i.e., spiritual want, and a crav- 
ing after something that yet cannot be found. 
There is nothing in iniquity that can give con- 
tentment to the spirit. " God has made us for 
Himself, and our souls are restless till they rest 
themselves in Him." We might illustrate this is 
the history of sinners of every social position : 
but, perhaps, you will be more convinced of the 
truth on which I now insist if I give you a few 
cases of men who had no external want unsatis- 
fied, and yet were tormented by an aching void in 
their hearts, craving for a happiness that would 
not come at their desire ; and I gladly appropri- 
ate here the words of Dr. Hamilton, in his most 
suggestive Lectures on the Book of Ecclesiastes : 



80 THE LOST FOUND. 

— " We could call into court nearly as many wit- 
nesses as there have been hunters of happiness, 
mighty Nimrods in the chase of Pleasure, and 
Fame, and Favor. We might ask the statesman, 
and as we wished him a happy new year, Lord 
Dundas would answer : ' It had need to be a 
happier than the last, for I never knew one hap- 
py day in it.' We might ask the successful law- 
yer, and the wariest, luckiest, most self-compla- 
cent of them all would answer, as Lord Eldon 
was privately recording when the whole bar envied 
the Chancellor, ' A few weeks will send me to 
dear Encombe, as a short resting-place betwixt 
vexation and the grave.' We might ask the 
golden millionaire : ' Tou must be a happy man, 
Mr. Rothschild.' ' Happy ! me happy ! What ! 
happy ! when just as you are going to dine you 
have a letter placed in your hand, saying, " If 
you don't send me X500, I will blow your brains 
out !" Happy ! when you have to sleep with pis- 
tols at your pillows.' We might ask the world- 
famed warrior, and get for answer the ^ Miserere ' 
of the Emperor-Monk (Charles V.,) or the sigh 
of a broken heart from St. Helena. We might 
ask the dazzling wit, and, faint with a glut of 
glory, yet disgusted with the creatures who 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 81 

adored him Voltaire would condense the es- 
sence of his existence into one word, * ennuV And 
we might ask the world's poet, and we would be 
answered with an imprecation by that splendid 
genius (Byron,) who 

' Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump 
Of fame ; drank early, deeply drank ; drank draughts 
That common millions might have quenched, then died 
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink,' " * 

But, descending from these cases, let us ask our- 
selves if, apart from God's favor, we have ever 
had any real, solid, lasting joy? Let us analyze 
our experiences in sin, and see if they have not 
proved that there is no satisfaction in iniquity 
but that, ever as we went on committing it, our 
souls began to be in a greater and yet greater 
want. Oh ! shall we never become wise ? Shall 
we never learn that there is nothing but misery 
while we are away from God ? Ye who are seek- 
ing after happiness in earthly things, forbear. 
Ye are pursuing a quest more visionary than 
that of the child, who sets out to catch the pillars 
of the many-colored rainbow in the far horizon. 

* Hamilton's '* Royal Preacher," pp. 26, 27. 



82 THE LOST FOUND. 

Never, never can you obtain what you are seek- 
ing, save in God. Turn, then, and beseech Him 
to give you that which you desire. " IncHne 
your ear, and come uuto him : hear, and your 
soul shall live ; hearken diligently unto him, and 
then your soul shall delight itself in fatness ;" 
for, if the universal experience of humanity on 
this point were to be gathered into one expres- 
sion, it would only indorse the words of Pollok : 

" Attempt how vain, 
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God, 
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love, 
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul — 
To satisfy the ocean with a drop — 
To marry immortality to death, 
And with the unsubstantial shade of time 
To fill the embrace of all eternity." 

Give over this mad endeavor, then. The crav- 
ings of your heart for happiness, if you only knew 
it, are inarticulate yearnings after God ; and the 
dissatisfaction and misery you feel in a hfe of 
sin, if you could but aright interpret them, are 
but the voice of your Father within you, saying 
evermore, " Come home to me ! Come home to 
me !" O let Him not call in vain ; but arise now 
and return to Him ! 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



II. 

THE RESOLUTION. 



" And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of 
my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! 

"I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father I have 
sinned against Heaven, and before thee, 

*•* And am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy 
hired servants. 

•* And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great 

way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his 

neck, and kissed him." 

Luke xv., 17-20. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 



II. 

THE RESOLUTION. 

We left the prodigal in the far land feeding 
swine, and longing to fill himself with the husks 
on which they fattened. To such a depth of de- 
gradation had he sunk, that he was williDg to eat 
out of the same trough with the unclean animals 
which, as a Jew, he so abhorred. Yet, in this 
seeming " lowest deep," there was a " lower still," 
for even this poor luxury was denied him. " No 
man gave unto him'' The very swine were pre- 
ferred to him, as belonging to a higher caste than 
he, and he was not allowed to share their fare. 
Ah, what a bitter humiliation was there in all 
this ! He had left his home with many visions of 
prosperity and greatness beckoning him od, and 



86 THE LOST FOUND. 

this was the result ! Yet, bitter as it was, this 
experience was the first thing that revealed him to 
himself. As sometimes the drunken husband, reel- 
ing home intoxicated, is sobered on the instant by 
the sight of his dead wife, and has most vividly 
recalled to him the day when, in the highest 
hope and in the holiest aflfection, he had pledged 
himself to love and cherish her ; so this setting 
of the swine before him stung the prodigal into 
a consciousness of his thorough desolation and 
his terrible extremity. Till now he had kept on 
hoping that '* something would turn up " in his 
favor, and enable him to retrieve his fortunes ; but 
all such anticipations are henceforth gone. When 
the hogs are set above him, it is all over with 
him. He has nothing more to look for. Either 
he must make up his mind to die of starvation, 
or to go back to his father's house. This is 
now his only alternative. Hitherto the choice 
which he has set before him has always been be- 
tween one or other of different ways of support- 
ing himself in the far country ; but now the idea 
of maintaining himself there is seen to be out 
of the question, and, for the first time, he shapes 
the alternative to himself thus — Will I remain 
here, and die of starvation ? or wiU I go back to 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 87 

the home which I so foohshly shghted in the 
days of the past ? Not all at once would he 
decide upon his course. Even as he thought of 
going back, difficulties would start up before him. 
His consciousness of guilt would for a time un- 
man him. Shame, too, would bid him stay. 
Haply, also, the fear of being upbraided by his 
father for the folly of his conduct would give 
him pause. But, over and above these, there 
was the strong, unanswerable, and importunate 
argument of hunger. " At least, there is plenty 
to eat at home," he thought ; " and though I 
may have to eat that plenty with bitter herbs, it 
will be better than starvation here." So at 
length, after a strong inward wrestle, the resolve 
comes out, clear and strong — " I will arise, and 
go to my father, and will say unto him, father, I 
have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and 
am no more worthy to be called thy son : make 
me as one of thy hired servants." Plain, straight- 
forward, humble, yet earnest, are the words 
which he determines to take with him ; and that 
nothing may intervene between the purpose and 
the performance, he arose, just as he was, and set 
out on his homeward way. The picture is per- 
fect ; and in the history of many an outcast 



88 THE LOST FOUND. 

whom treachery has first ruined, and then tram- 
pled under foot, it has been literally exempli- 
fied ; nor do I know a kinder service we can do 
to any poor prodigal whom the tide of our city 
life may drift to our doors than just to put him 
in the way of returning to his earthly father's 
house ; for, not unfrequently, that is only the 
first step in the return of the erring one to God. 
Perhaps such an one, led by the providence of 
God, may have come casually into this house to- 
day. Let me entreat him to go home, and glad- 
den the hearts of those to whom he is dear. 
By the memory of your mother's tenderness, and 
your father's prayers ; by the recollection of your 
childhood's joys, and of your boyhood's happi- 
ness; by the obligation under which you feel 
your parents laid you for j^our education, and 
the oj^portunities of w^ell-doing which you en- 
joyed — bj^ all that is holiest and most treas- 
ured in the associations of the past, I implore 
you to go home. And if words will not move 
you, then let this touching scene impress your 
heart. Behold that mother in her Highland 
cottage, as she kneels at evening prayer. Draw 
near and listen to the words she utters, as the 
big tears course down her cheeks ; " Lordy' she 



THE PEODIGAL SON. 89 

says, ^^have mercy on that poor lassie, luJierever 
she may be this night. Let her not die in her sins. 
But hring her hack to me again, that I may bring 
her bach to Thee'' She rises from her knees, 
goes out to look through the darkness if, per- 
chance, the wanderer may be near. She comes 
in and shuts the door, but leaves it unbarred, 
saying the while — " I will not bolt it, lest she 
should come when I'm asleep, and I loould not 
like her to find my door locked a^gainst her," Oh, 
is there nothing in all this to impel you home- 
ward ? Go back ! go back ! the door into a 
true parent's heart, like that of the home of 
which I have spoken, is usually on the latch to 
an erring child, and the truest joy you have 
known for many a day will be when you weep 
out your penitence in your father's arms. 

But we must not forget that this is not mere- 
ly a literal history. It is a parable, having a spir- 
itual meaning. The prodigal, as we saw in the 
last discourse, represents the sinner — and the 
scene depicted in the verses now before us de- 
scribes what we may call the crisis of conversion. 
Now, thus regarded, the language is most sug- 
gestive, and illustrates these important things, 
namely, the sinner's true condition so long as ho 



90 THE LOST FOUND 

is away from God, the means by which this con- 
dition is changed, the reflections made by him 
after this change, and the resolution to which his 
reflections lead. 

I. In the first place, we have brought before 
us the true conditiori of the sinner so long as lie is 
away from God, "When he came to himself :" 
that implies that in some very real sense he had 
not been perfectly himself. Generally, commen- 
tators have supposed that the reference here is 
to insanity, and they tell us, with perfect truth, 
that the sinner is, in some respects, like a mad- 
man. He follows delusions as if they were reali- 
ties, and he treats reahties as if they were delu- 
sions. His moral nature is perverted, just as the 
lunatic's intellect is beclouded ; and, in regard to 
duty, he makes mistakes similar to those which 
the maniac makes in ordinary matters. So he 
may well be styled mad ; but there is this solemn 
difi'erence between him and the ordinary lunatic, 
that while insanity cancels responsibility, the* sin- 
ner is not only blameworthy for his moral per- 
versity, but his responsibility continues in spite of 
it. Although, however, there are thus many in- 
teresting and striking points of resemblance be- 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 91 

tween the condition of the maniac and that of the 
sinner, I am not sure that the " coming to him- 
self," in the verse before me, suggests the being 
" beside himself," as the condition out of which 
he came. Equally it may imply that he was " be- 
neath himseK," or that there was in him a cer- 
tain unconsciousness, out of which he required to 
be roused before he could be thoroughly himself. 
When, for example, one has fainted away and re- 
covers, we say that "he has come to himself 
again," implying that his consciousness has re- 
turned. Now, in my view, this is the preferable 
way of looking at the analogy of my text. The 
moral nature of this poor youth was virtually 
dead. His conscience had become seared, so 
that he was, in a manner, unconscious that there 
was such a faculty within him. It was. there, but 
it was asleep. It was there, but it was so pre- 
cisely as the intellectual nature is in a man when 
he is in a faint : it was inoperative, it was not 
consciously possessed by him. At length, how- 
ever, roused by a sense of his degradation, 
and the touch of God's Spirit, it awoke, and 
then he came to himself. The sinner's higher 
nature is dormant in him. He has a spiritual 
faculty which allies him with God, and which, 



92 THE LOST FOUND 

as the noblest part of his nature, is most really 
and truly himself. But he is not conscious 
that he has it. It is dead within him. He has 
overlaid it with trespasses and sins. Hence he is 
not himself. I do not mean, of course, that his 
personal identity is gone, but rather that the no- 
blest part of his nature has been as good as lost 
by him. The spiritual, as distinguished from the 
mere intellectual, has become virtually non-exist- 
ent. His animal nature may be^as strong as ever. 
His intellect may be brilliant and acute. Even in 
regard to morals he may be irreproachable by his 
fellow-men ; but in that part of his being that 
alUes him with God he never dwells. He lives, so 
to say, on the ground-floor of the soul-house, on 
earth and among earthly things. His appetites, 
passions, and desires are strong ; his intellect even 
may be vigorous and clear ; but it is only exer- 
cised regarding natural things. He does not 
know those things which can be only " spiritually 
discerned." His soul has no outlook toward hea- 
ven, and that part of his nature v/hich was in- 
tended to be its crowning glory, and which allies 
him to heaven, is shut up and tenantless, Uke a 
dusty attic. He is not himself. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 93 

II. But we have here, secondly, the cliange of this 
condition : " he came to himself." A new light 
broke upon this youth in the midst of his dark- 
ness. He saw things as he had never before 
perceived them. Not till now did he discover 
the guilt and issue of the course which he had 
been pursuing ; and never in his past experience 
had his father's house seemed to him precious. 
For the first time since he left his home, he awoke 
from " the dream his life-long fever gave him," 
and things as they were stood unveiled before 
him. Now, so it is with the sinner. His conver- 
sion^ too, is in its first stage an awakening. New 
thoughts stir within his soul ; new feelings vibrate 
in his bosom. He begins to see what before had 
been to him almost as a landscape is to a man 
born blind. It is not that new things are called 
into existence outside of him, for all things are 
there as they were before. It is rather that 
his eyes have been opened to see them ; and 
the wonder of his whole subsequent life is, 
that he never saw them until then. He per- 
ceives now the danger in which he stands; and 
recognizing the ability and willingness of God 
to help him, he cries, like Peter, weltering in the 
waters, " Lord, save me ; I perish." Such being 



94 THE LOST FOUND. 

the change which is here called a coming to 
himself, the question presents itself, How is this 
alteration brought about in the sinner? The 
answer is important, and though it will take us 
into the deep things of spiritual experience, I 
shall endeavor to put it clearly and distinctly be- 
fore you. 

Let me ask you to recall what I have abeady 
said regarding the relation of the three parables 
in this chapter to each other. The first two set 
before us God seeking and finding the sinner, 
througb the incarnation of the Son, and the agency 
of the Spirit. The third shows us the sinner seek- 
ing God. But we are not to suppose that these 
are separate pictures of distinct conversions. On 
the contrary, they are all three true of every real 
convei^sion. Viewed from the divine side, God 
seeks the sinner ; but we, who see only the earthly 
side, perceive only the sinner rising and returning 
to God. It did not lie in the Saviour's way in 
this story to illustrate either the connection of 
His own sacrificial work, or that of the Spirit's 
agency, with conversion. Indeed, the introduction 
of anything like a representation of either of 
these would only have marred the imity of the 
parable. But in dealing with conversion, we have 



THE PKODIGAL SON. 95 

to remember that there is a divine side to the sub- 
ject as well as a human one, and that the full 
truth regarding it is to be had, not by taking each 
side separately, but by combining both. Thus it 
is a fact that, from first to last in a sinner's con- 
version, there is and must be the special agency 
of the Divine Spirit ; but it is also a fact. that 
there is in it a human activity. The Spirit works ; 
but then He does so in harmony with the* consti- 
tution of the human soul, and in such a way that 
the soul is not conscious of His operations as 
anything distinct from the workings of its own 
faculties. The Spirit goes before the truth to 
prepare its way, by providences and other means 
at His disposal. The Spirit comes with the truth 
to give it power. This He does in a manner 
which He has not been pleased anywhere to ex- 
plain. But still it is in connection with the truth 
that He operates ; and His operations are not of 
such a nature that the soul can identify them at 
the time as His, and as apart fffem the workings 
of its ow^n powers. To the eye of a spiritual be- 
ing, God's agency is conspicuous from the begin- 
ning, and the whole work may be called His. To 
the eye of a man, the sinner alone is visible, and 
the whole thing may be said to be done by him- 



96 THE LOST FOUND. 

self. The full truth is, that the man is working 
out his own salvation, because God is working in 
him to will and to do of His good pleasure. Or, 
as Jonathan Edwards has expressed it, the whole 
thing is brought about by " God's working ally and 
mans acting alV Yet, even in reference to God's 
w^orking, let us remember that He employs always 
appropriate means. The great end He has in 
view is to awaken the soul to spiritual things, 
to get it to perceive its danger, and to apprehend 
the means of salvation which He has provided. 
Now, by the dispensations of His providence. He 
may dispose the soul to receive the truth on these 
subjects in many ways. Affliction is one of the 
most common, — disease, as it were, ringing the 
alarm-bell of the soul, and rousing it to face 
eternal realities. Thus it was with Chalmers, 
and many more, in whom the crisis of being has 
been as signally marked. Sometimes, again. He 
uses the early associations of home, and through 
means of them procures the opening of the heart, 
w^hich had remained shut even against the pre- 
sence of severest affliction. Thus it was with the 
poor sailor lying in the hospital of one of our 
seaports, who remained unmoved by every appeal 
addressed to him, until the missionary, perceiving 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 97 

that lie was a Scotsman, sat down beside his bed 
and sang, to the fine old tune of Coleshill, the 
Psalmist's words, as rendered in the metrical 
version used in the churches and homes of his 
natiye land : 

Such pity as a father hath 

Unto his children dear, 
Like pity shows the Lord to such 

As worship Him in fear. 

When he heard the old familiar strain, he 
started up at once, and said, " Who taught you 
that ? I .haven't heard it since I heard my father 
sing it at family worship." So, the truth having 
found an entrance through the portals of memory, 
the missionary was not long in leading him to 
Christ. Occasionally, again, the heart is opened, 
and the man awakened, through the means of 
natural affection. Thus it was with him of whom 
John Ashworth tells, who left his breakfast-table 
one Sabbath morning for a few minutes to arrange 
with some comrades about going out dog-fighting 
in tho forenoon. When he returned, he saw tears 
standing in the eyes of his little daughter, as she 
sat finishing her meal, and ready dressed for Sun- 
day school. " What ails thee ?" said he, as he 
kindly looked at her. '' I don't want you to go 



98 THE LOST FOUND. 

with these bad men," she answered. " It is the 
Lord's day, and God will be sure to see you." 
'' Bless the child," said he ; " how she talks ! 
Never mind me, dear, but go to school." Still, 
however, she sat in sorrow, and as the tears flowed 
thickly down her cheeks, she said again^ " Don't 
go, father." " WeU, then," said he, " I won't go. 
So go to the school with thee, and be happy." 
And he did not go, but in the evening went with 
her to public worship ; and she found for him the 
places, for she was the better scholar of the two. 
And by and by, as the result of all this, he came 
to himself, and went to his Father, and is now an 
honored and useful member of the Christian 
Church. Nay, sometimes even the ribald pro- 
fanity of the wicked man has been the means em- 
ployed by G.od to rouse him to his higher self. 
During the days of Whitefield and his coadjutors, 
Mr. Thorpe, and several like-minded companions 
in Yorkshire, undertook to mimic and travesty 
the preaching of these great Evangelists. One 
after another, they mounted a table, and set them- 
selves to caricature one or other of God's ser- 
vants. Mr. Thorpe's turn came last, and, in the 
regardlessness of his spirit, as he ascended the 
table, he said, " I shall beat you all." The Bible 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 99 

was handed to him. It opened — how, he knew 
not, but those who saw God's side of the affair, 
would perceive His hand open it-— at Luke xiii., 3, 
" Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 
The moment he read, his soul was impressed. He 
saw clearly the nature and importance of the sub- 
ject ; and he afterwards said, if he ever preached 
with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it was at 
that time. When he had finished — levelled, as it 
were, by the recoil of the gun which he had 
thought to fire at God's servants — he retired to 
weep over his sins, and became in the end an 
able and useful minister of the New Testament, 
Or, not to multiply instances, God may use the 
ordinary means of curiosity and the preaching 
of the truth to lead up to this awakening. So 
it was with one of whom I have been told, who 
was of excellent moral character, a zealous ad- 
vocate of total abstinence, and a most intellect- 
ual man, but, unhappily, also an unbeliever. 
Passing along the street one Lord's-day morn- 
ing, he came to the door of a church where a 
minister preached who was well known for his 
labors in the temperance cause, and he said 
within himself, " I have heard of this man ; I 
should like to go in." But he had not been 



100 THE LOST FOUND. 

within a house of God for ten years, and he 
felt ashamed to venture. He went away fully 
a quarter of a mile past the church, but still 
he felt as if he must go back. So he returned 
and entered the sanctuary. In the course of the 
sermon, something was said which stirred him 
to the very depths. His knees smote against 
each other. He sat trembling and astonished. 
He came again. He heard a Bible-class an- 
nounced for a certain evening. He went to that. 
He became interested in the inquiries which 
were there prosecuted ; and at length, coming 
fully to himself, he went to his Father, writing 
to the minister whom God had used all through 
in these words : — " With the long and dreary 
winter that has passed away has gone the win- 
ter of my unbelief ; and while I attribute this 
result to a higher than human power, permit 
me to say that you have been the channel 
through which that power was conveyed, first 
from the pulpit, and afterwards by your kind 
and generous sympathy, for which I hope I 
shall ever be truly grateful." Now, I have brought 
out these cases to show you how in conversion, 
all, from the human side, is perfectly natural, 
while from the divine all is of God. The doc- 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 101 

trine of the special agency of the Spirit in con- 
version, thus viewed, is a parallel instance to 
that of the great doctrine of the special provi- 
dence of God. It might, indeed, almost be de- 
scribed as special providence working in the de- 
partment of spiritual things ; and God's agency 
and man's agency are united in conversion, just 
as they are united in the actions of every day. 
We cannot be saved without the Spirit's agency ; 
but neither, again, can the Spirit save us except 
through our own activity in believing .and obey- 
ing the truth. The Spirit'.s agency is necessary 
to faith and repentance, but it is the sinner that 
believes and repents. It is impossible to say 
where the one agency terminates, and the other 
begins. Eather, as it seems to me, do they mu- 
tually interpenetrate each other, only, as these par- 
ables make plain, God's seeking always precedes 
the sinner's rising. 

III. But it is time now that we should con- 
sider the prodigaVs reflections on coming to himself. 
They were twofold — having regard, first, to him- 
self, and, second, to his father's house. 

In reference to himself, he said — " I perish 
with hunger," Now, as I have already hinted, 



102 THE LOST FOUND. 

there was distinct progress here. Never before 
had this youth allowed himself to think that 
death by starvation was to be the issue if he re- 
mained in the far land; but so soon as that 
clearly shaped itself to him, he took his resolu- 
tion to arise. It is the same with men, and 
their return to God. I believe if we could nar- 
row down the choice of the sinner to one or 
other of these two alternatives — everlasting de- 
struction as the consequence of guilt, or eternal 
salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ — we 
should have no difficulty in impelling him to de- 
cide in the right direction ; but because he per- 
sists in believing that there is some loophole left 
him, through which he may escape, even if he 
should -not accept salvation through Christ, he 
continues indifferent to the statements of the 
gospel. I do not think that there are many men 
who believe that they are going to everlasting 
perdition. There are, indeed, multitudes of de- 
plorably wicked persons ; yet I cannot think 
that they ever really consider that they are on 
the way to hell. They have the feehng that 
things are not just so bad wdth them as that 
yet ; they fancy that, somehow or other, they 
hardly know how, in spite qi all that they are, 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 103 

and all that they have done, they shall still 
escape ; and so they go thoughtlessly on. They 
imagine that God will not, as they say, " be strict 
to mark iniquity with them ;" or they think that 
sin cannot be such a dreadful thing after all ; or 
they flatter themselves that they will, at some 
future period, take thought and repent; and 
they say, meanwhile, " There's time enough yet." 
Thus each one has his own vague hope that, af- 
ter all, " he shall not surely die." So it is that 
Satan keeps continually repeating the old lie 
wherewith he deluded our common parents to 
their ruin. But when the sinner comes to him- 
self, all these deceptions are swept away. He 
sees only the fearful fact, " ' I perish.' Away 
from God, I must be, I cannot but be, eter- 
nally destroyed ;" and this, taken together with 
his belief in God's offer of salvation, stirs 
him up to arise and to return to his Father. 
Awake, O sinner ! to the danger in which you 
stand. If you continue as you are, there is noth- 
ing but destruction before you. If you neglect 
the great salvation, there is no possibility of 
escape for you. Between two such alternatives, 
vvho would hesitate as to his choice ? 

But the prodigal's reflections had reference 



104: THE LOST FOUND. 

also to his father's house. He said — " How 
many hired servants of my father's have bread 
enough and to spare !" Bread ! — once he thought 
of greatness and wealth ; — now, however, he will 
be content with bread — yea, if he could only have 
what many a time he had seen his father's ser- 
vants lay aside as not required by them, he would 
be content. There was enough at home, if he 
were only there. Now, similarly, the sinner, in 
conversion, comes to the persuasion that there is 
plenty for him in God. If you ask how this is 
brought about in him, I answer, by his behef of 
the statements of the gospel ; for it is here that 
we must bring in the doctrine of the Cross. It 
is possible for one to be aroused to a sense of 
his danger, and yet go no further. Many have 
been " awakened," as the phrase is, without being 
converted. They have had a glimpse of the 
awful truth, that they were perishing ; but they 
have not beheved the good news of salvation in 
Jesus, and so they have continued in their sins. 
They found that they were in want, but they did 
not seem to know that there was bread in their 
Father's house. In every real conversation, how- 
ever, we have both things believed ; and the be- 
lioi of both is connected with the Cross of Christ, 



THE PEODIGAL SON. 105 

for there the sinner learns both how fearful a 
thing sin is, and how full of love to him God is. 
He sees, in Christ's death, an atonement for 
sin of infinite value, and unlimited sufficiency. 
There is enough in it to meet his need — yea, 
enough and to spare ; salvation, not for him alone, 
but for all who choose to avail themselves of it ; 
and the belief of that, coupled with his appall- 
ing sense of present danger and the necessity, 
impels him to resolve. Let the sinner take note 
of this, that he may be encouraged, not to go on 
in sin, but " to repent and be converted." There 
is hope for -him. " Christ Jesus is the propiti- 
ation for the sins of the whole world. " He is 
able to save unto the uttermost all that cometh 
unto God. by Him, seeing he ever liveth to make 
intercession for them." Who would starve with 
such plenty at hand? who would die eternally 
with such life put in his offer ? There is no stint 
in the provision which God has made for u§ in 
the gospel feast. There is enough and to spare. 
Enough for all the guests, and yet abundance 
besides. "Yet there is room" — room in the 
love of God's heart ; room in the sufficiency 
of the work of Christ ; room in the Church be- 
low ; room in the sanctuary above ; room for sin- 



106 THE LOST FOUND. 

ners of every age and degree, and color and 
clime ; — ^yea, room, O starving one ! for thee, if 
only thou wilt take thy place at the board, and 
put on the wedding garment which thy Lord has 
furnished. 

IV. I dare not conclude without noticing, how- 
ever briefly, the resolution to ivliich those, reflections 
led. " I will arise and go to my father, and will 
say unto him. Father, I have sinned against 
heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy 
to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy 
hired servants." This youth determined, there 
and then, to go back to his home; not, however, 
in a dogged, sullen, defiant spirit, but in a tho- 
roughly penitent disposition. He blames no one 
but himself ; he resolves to make a full and frank 
acknowledgment of his folly ; and, instead of 
claiming anything as a rightful portion, he is will- 
ing to be treated as a servant. Now, taking 
this as representing the sinner's repentance, one 
or two things need to be noted, as suggested 
by it. 

In the first place, there is an unreserved con- 
fession of sin : " Father^ I have sinned against 
heaven and hefore thee.'' He does not soften 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 107 

matters, and speak of his ** faults" or his "fail- 
ings." He does not say, in a self-extenuating 
way, " I have been a little wild ;" but he puts 
the plain truth forth in all its hideousness, "I 
have simwdr Neither, again, does he cast the 
blame on others. He does not say, ''So-and- 
so led me astray ;" " If it had not been for the 
companions by whom I was surrounded, I had 
never come to this ;" or, " If I had only been in 
other circumstances, I would have kept myself 
from iniquity." No ; his language is, " / have 
sinned; the guilt is mine. I have no wish to 
evade it, or explain it away. I am ashamed of 
myself." 

Yet, once more, the enormity of his wicked- 
ness before heaven is that which most distresses 
him. He had brought many evils on himself. 
He had inflicted great injuries upon others ; but 
that which most burdens him now is, that he has 
sinned against God — the Father who has done so 
much for him, and has even, after all, and, above 
all, sent His Son into the world to make atone- 
ment for his guilt. This is painful to him in 
the extreme, and he can do nothing but weep 
over it ; but his tears, in the estimation of God, 
are of more value than the glittering diamond, 



108 THE LOST FOUND. 

for they tell Him that He has found at last His 
loug-lost child, not simply in the outward form 
that stands before him, but also in the heart out 
of which this sorrow comes. This is true peni- 
tence. This is the broken spirit, exhaling an 
odor sweeter far than that which came from the 
alabaster vase of spikenard in Mary's hand. This 
is the contrite heart which the Lord will not de- 
spise. 

But, looking again at the resolution before us, 
we find in it a determination to personal exer- 
tion : " I loill arise /" The prodigal did not 
wait till some one else should come and lift him, 
and carry him to his home. He was fully per- 
suaded that if ever he reached his father's house, 
it could only be by travelling the distance for him- 
self : so he arose and went. Now, similarly with 
the sinner, though the distance between him 
and God is not physical, but moral, yet, if he 
would be saved, there must be the putting forth 
of his own individual human agency. He does 
not require to rise from the spot where he is, and 
go away to some far distant country, in order to 
return to God. He may pass through the whole 
transition while yet he is in one and the same 
earthly spot. The coming is spiritual. It is the 



THE PEODIGAL SON. 109 

restoring of his heart to God : the giving back of 
his love, and loyalty, and allegiance to his Heav- 
enly Father : the surrender to God of the sover- 
eignty of his soul which, in the outset of his ca- 
reer, he had determined to retain to himself. 
Now, this restoration of the soul to God, this giv- 
ing back of itself to the Father, is the soul's own 
act ; and in this self-submission to Jehovah — this 
rendering back of itself by the soul to God, as 
its proper possessor — we have the consummation 
of conversion. No doubt, as I have said, the 
Spirit is in it all ; yet the soul gives itself up, and 
we must be on our guard against delaying this 
self-renunciation on the plea of waiting for the 
Spirit. To put off, on this ground, would be 
just as foolish in us as it would have been in the 
prodigal here to have said — " I will wait till 
some one lifts me up, and carries me home." 
Multitudes, however, think of the Spirit's agency 
as of some influence which, distinct from, and 
external to, themselves, is to take them, and, 
apart from any action of their own, carry them 
into salvation. But this is an utter delusion. 
The Spirit works for us by working in us, and 
through us ; and His agency is not such as we 
can distinguish, apart from the common opera- 



110 THE LOST FOUND. 

tion of our faculties. Hence, if we wish the Spirit 
to lead us to give baqk our souls to God, we 
must ourselves seek to make this spiritual sur- 
render ; and when we do, we shall discover that 
He has been beforehand with us, and has al- 
ready anticipated us with His quickening grace. 

Finally, here, this resolution was promptly act- 
ed upon : " He arose and went to his father ^ Just 
as he was, all tattered and filthy, he went back. 
He did not say, looking at his garments the 
while, " I cannot go in this plight ; I must wash 
mj^self, and change my raiment, and then set out." 
Had he mused in that fashion, he would proba- 
bly never have returned ; but he went as he 
was. So, in conversion, the sinner gives himseli 
back to God just as he is. He does not seek to 
make himself better. He delays not to work out 
for himself a robe of righteousness. He waits 
not even for deeper feelings, or for more intense 
conviction. He puts himself into God's hands, 
sure that, for Christ's sake. He will make him all 
that he should be. *' Such as I am," he says, 
" take me and make me such as Thou wouldst 
have me to be." This is the whole matter. 
This only ! but all this ; and if there be any one 
here to-day moved by the presentation of these 



THE PKODIGAL SON. Ill 

truths, let me beseech him now, where he is, and 
as he is, to give himself back to the Father, with- 
out reservation and without delay. 

" Just as thoti art, without one trace 
Of love, or joy, or inward grace. 
Or meetness for the heavenly place, 

O guilty sinner, come I" 

" Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the wa- 
ters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy 
wine and milk without money and without price. 
"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is 
not bread ? and your labor for that which satisfi- 
eth not ? hearken diligently unto me, and let your 
soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, 
and come unto me : hear, and your soul shall 
live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant 
with you, even the sure mercies of David." 
" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest," " The Spirit 
and the bride say. Come ; and let him that hear- 
eth say. Come. And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him take the water of 
life freely." Spirit of the Living God ! let some 
soul to-day hear this heavenly home-call, and re- 
turn to Thee. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 



HI. 

THE RETURN 



•* And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great 
way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his 
neck, and kissed him. 

"And the son said unto him. Father, I have sinned against Heaven, 
and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 

** But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put 
it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet : 

*' And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and let us eat, and be 
merry : 

"For this my son was 'dead, and is ahve again ; he was lost, and ia 
found. And they began to be merry." 

Luke, xy., 20-24. 



THE PRODIGAL SO^. 



III. 

THE KETUKN. 



Many years have passed since the prodigal's de- 
parture from his father's house, but all things 
there have continued outwardly as they were. 
The same air of prosperity is about the place. 
In spring-time the carol of the plough-boy, and 
in harvest the song of the reaper, have been 
heard as before. If anything, the old people 
have grown more venerable in aspect ; their gait 
has become more stooping, and their movements 
are slower ; while the wrinkles on their fore- 
heads have deepened, and grey hairs are here 
and there among their locks ; but the same neat 
attention to appearance characterizes them both, 
and a calm contentment sits upon their faces. 



116 THE LOST FOUND. 

Their son has conducted himself with decorum, 
and by his energy and care has relieved his fa- 
ther from all anxiety as to worldly things ; and 
their servants have been so long beneath their 
roof, that they have come to regard themselves, 
and to be regarded by others, as members of the 
family. To the casual visitor everything w^ould 
seem delightful, and many might have envied the 
gladness that appeared to dwell among them. But 
external things are no sure indication of that 
which lies beneath them ; for, even in this home, 
there is a skeleton. A sorrow, all the heavier that 
it is never spoken, lies upon the parents' hearts, 
revealed only by the long-fixed, abstracted gaze 
that comes occasionally across their countenances, 
or by the heavy, deep-drawn sigh, which, in 
thoughtful moments, one or other heaves. No in- 
genious questioning of yours.will evoke their con- 
fidence, or draw from them a description of their 
cross ; but, when you go, at eventide, to the ser- 
vants' hall, you may hear the elder among them 
whispering to the younger something about mas- 
ter's " other " son ; and when you ask them 
what they mean, they will tell you how, long ago, 
there was a younger son in the family — the idol of 
them all. They will never weary of praising his 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 117 

frank opeu-heartedness, so different from the stiff 
preciseness of his brother ; they will rehearse to 
you the jokes he made, and the songs he used to 
sing, and the kind things he did to all about him. 
They will relate, mayhap, how, when one of them 
was seized with sudden and dangerous illness, 
it was he who rode through the pelting rain to 
hasten for the medical man ; it was he who sat up 
through the dreary night-hours, seeking to 
soothe the sufferer ; it was he who was always 
ready with his help and his hand — the darling of 
the family, the pride of the country-side. Then, 
with the gathering tear in the eye, they will tell 
how something took him, they never found out 
precisely what ; and he left the house and went 
away, no one knew whither, and had never been 
heard of since. Then they will assure you that 
for all so quiet and calm as he looked, " master " 
had never been the same since he had gone, but 
went about the house, seeming to have lost a 
part of himself ; and that even yet, day after day, 
he would go to the hill-top yonder, and look this 
way and that way, as if he were expecting him 
to come again ; but that he never named his name, 
and they only knew how keen were his feelings in 
the matter from one constant petition in his family 



118 THE LOST FOUND. 

j)rajer — ^' That God miglit bring the wanderer 
home." 

Ah ! how many houses in the land have just 
such a skeleton within as this ! Would God that 
in eacli case the issue were as it was here ! For, 
lo ! rounding the corner of the lane, the long- 
lost son is seen '' afar off." Many a weary foot 
he has travelled, sustained by the prospect of 
reaching home at last ; ret when at lensrth the old 
familiar place comes first into his view, strange 
misgivings fill his heart. Hope spurred him on 
till then, but now fears begin to work. " Will my 
father receive me after all ?" " How can I face 
him in this pitiful plight ?" " Would it not be 
better to go back ?" These and kindred ques- 
tionings arise within him, and he lingers in timid 
irresolution. But before he is aware, his falter- 
ing feelings are banished in a way at once the 
most unexpected and the most effectual. For his 
father had been, as his custom was, upon the 
outlook for him ; and though his raiment was 
ragged, and his face haggard, and his whole ap- 
pearance changed, there was still that about him, 
in walk, or shape, or feature, by which at once 
the old man recognized him. And he ran and 
embraced him, and kissed him. There were no 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 119 

words spoken on his side ; for, when the heart is 
fullest, it can speak only through tears. Like Ja- 
cob with Joseph, " he fell on his neck, and wept 
a good while." No taunt about the past was ut- 
tered ; no gibe escaped him about the present 
appearance of his son. It was enough that it 
was he come home again ; and he would take 
him, not to his house merely, but to his heart. 
In that embrace the prodigal's misgivings melt- 
ed all away. There was no question now about 
his reception. He had been already welcomed ; 
and so with a deeper feeling than he had known 
when he made the resolution to employ them, he 
repeated the words, " Father, I have sinned against 
Jieaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to 
he called^ thy son,'' but he did not add, " Make me 
as one of thy hired servants." That, he felt, 
would have been to insult the generous affection 
of his father, who had already taken him back 
into the old place of son ; so, gladly and grate- 
fully, he accepts the kindness, and goes forward 
with him to the dwelling. When they reached 
the house, the order was given by the father to 
the servants, '' Bring forth the best robe and put 
it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes 
on his feet ; and bring hither the fatted calf, and 



120 THE LOST FOUND. 

let US eat and be merry ;" while, that all may 
Iinow the reason of this unwonted joy, the pro- 
clamation was made, " For this my son was 
dead, and is alive again : he was lost, and is 
found." 

Not always thus, however, are returning chil- 
dren received by earthly parents ; and before I 
pass to the spiritual meaning of this portion of 
the parable, permit me to point from it a moral 
for the guidance of those who are heads of fami- 
lies among us. "We who are in that position have 
two opposite dangers to avoid. On the one hand, 
we have to watch against that laxity of discipline 
which permits children to do just as they please ; 
and. on the other, we have to keep from that 
stern and unrelenting severity which visits every 
fault with rigid punishment, and presents a cold, 
unfeeling aspect to the child. It is hard to say 
which of these two evils is the more pernicious ; 
but, in general, we are prone to fall into the for- 
mer when our children are very young ; and, into 
the latter when they grow older, and verge to- 
ward manhood and womanhood. Now it is espe- 
cially the extreme of sternness which is reproved 
by the conduct of the father here described. We 
ought to recognize the birth of individuality in 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 121 

eur children ; and, as they advance in years, we 
ought to feel that we are to rule them through the 
intellect and the affections, and not by the force 
of mere authority. There is a parental intoler- 
ance which is as harsh and overbearing, and to 
the full as disastrous, as any infringement of civil 
or religious liberty by a government can ever be. 
And, in our desire to rule as the family governors, 
we ought never to forget the kind of rule which 
we are to exercise. I willingly admit that, even 
in the case of grown-up sons and daughters, there 
may be offences committed which require that we 
should show displeasure ; but we should beware 
of so showing it, as to drive them from our homes 
at the very time when most they need to feel the 
influence of our love, and to be regulated by the 
force of our example. I have heard of a minister 
of the gospel turning one of his sons out of doors 
for nothing worse than such pranks as lads, in the 
exuberance of their spirits, are prone to indulge 
in. The mother went with him for a portion of 
his way, and talked and prayed with him as only 
a mother can ; and, in his case, the issue was that 
he rose to a position of honor, not only in the 
nation, but in the Church. Still, if it had been 
otherwise, and the youth had gone to ruin, would 



122 THE LOST FOUND. 

not his father have been chargeable in some de- 
gree with the murder of his soul ? The skillful 
angler, when he hooks a noble fish, is never too 
anxious to bring it to the shore. He gives ii line, 
and lets it run awhile, until at length, weary with 
its splashing, it becomes an easy prey. So in 
fishing for men, and especially for our own chil- 
dren, we must not make the cord too tight, lest it 
break, and they go far from us ; but with a holy 
guile, and with a loving tenderness, while we still 
keep hold of them, we must give them line, only 
thereby in the end to bring them more securely 
to the Lord. So again, when a son or a daughter 
has gone astray, and comes back to us, we should 
act as this father did. "We should not upbraid, 
or sneer, or ridicule, or condemn. We may be 
sure that there has been enough of bitterness in 
the conscience of the offender, before the mind 
was made up to come to us again. The heart 
and the home should be opened as before, and 
nothing should come from us that would painfully 
remind the prodigal of past iniquity. How deeply 
some men have sinned at once against their own 
better nature and against God, by adopting an 
opposite course! I have been told of a father 
coming into a house where, unknown to him, his 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 123 

daugliter was at the moment a guest ; and, though 
her heart was yearning for a kindly word from 
him, there was nothing but a cold, silent greeting 
accorded to her. Why ? because she had given 
her heart and her hand to a good man, whose 
only fault, even in her father's eyes, was that he 
was poor. What an idea that man must have of 
God, if this be his notion of fatherhood ! and 
what a dread that shrinking one must have of 
Jehovah, if her earthly father is to be to her a 
type of the Father in Heaven ! A few years ago 
it was stated in the English newspapers that a 
Bishop, who had died possessed of thousands, 
had deliberately declined to leave a portion to a 
daughter, simply on the ground that she had 
married, against his will, a poor clergyman of the 
very Church of which he was a dignitary ! Nor 
was he content with that ; but in his will, and 
with his own account in view, he actually vindi- 
cated his conduct on the score of justice and of 
duty. Alas for us, if God had thus inexorably 
cut us off from all hope of inheritance ! Since, 
then, such paltry grounds as these are, in some 
cases, sufficient to create implacable resentment 
in a parent's heart, we need not be surprised to 
find that frequently, when sin has been commit- 



124 THE LOST FOUND. 

ted, tlie father's house is shut against the of- 
fender. *' He shall never darken my door again /" or, 
" I loill have nothing more to do with her, she has made 
her own bed, and must lie upon it'' These are 
expressions, alas ! which are sometimes heard 
from those who have what they call " ill-doing " 
children. But do they ever think how much the 
knowledge that they are thus unrelenting does to 
drive the poor wanderer into more terrible ini- 
quity? or how, perhaps, their cruel harshness 
may even keep the prodigal from turning to God ? 
— as he says, " If my father will not hearken 
to me, how can I hope that God will forgive 
me ?" Oh ! let us remember that " we are 
SAVED BY HOPE," not by fear. You may bring 
your child back to rectitude by giving him 
ground to hope for something from your affec- 
tion ; you v/ill never reform him by making him 
afraid of you. The matron of a female educa- 
tional hospital in Edinburgh told me, recently, a 
most interesting history. One of her scholars, 
after she had left the hospital, fell into evil 
courses, and became openly abandoned ; hearing 
of her case, my friend tracked her from one den 
of infamy to another, braving dangers which, for 
a Christian lady, are more terrible than the dead- 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 125 

liest charge is to a soldier. At length she found 
her ; and, after long dealing with her, in which 
she was aided by a devoted minister of Christ, 
and blessed, as she believes, by the Holy Spirit, 
she succeeded in taking her to her mother's 
house, in a quiet rural retreat. Now, just sup- 
pose, for a moment, that after all the exertions of 
these friends, the mother had said, " No, she shall 
not come here. I loill not have my household polluted 
by her presence^ What would have been the ef- 
fect upon the girl ? "Would it not have sent her 
back again to sin ? and would not she, from 
whom she had the greatest reason to expect af- 
fection, have been, in that case, the cause of her 
ultimate ruin ? As it was, however, the mother, 
like the father here, " Jdssed the past into forgetful- 
n^ess,^^ and, without upbraiding of any sort, took 
her to her home once more. Thus it should al- 
ways be ; for if we would hold our children back 
from sin, or bring them again from the evil 
ways into which they may have fallen, we must 
bind them by the spell, and draw them by the 
magnetism of love. Let us make home attract- 
ive by the sweet influences of affection ; so shall 
we best preserve our young people from going 
astray ; and, when they have fallen, let us be 



126 THE LOST FOUND. 

sure that only tenderness and affection will ever 
lift them up again. 

"Forget not thoii hast often sinned, 

And sinful yet must be ; 
Deal gently with the erring one, 

As thy God hath dealt with thee." 

It is time, however, that we should look at the 
spiritual meaning of this portion of the parable ; 
and here the question presents itself, What are 
we to understand by the reception given by the 
father to the returning prodigal? The answer 
may be given in a single sentence, — It is the 
welcome given to the repentant sinner by God 
the Father. But while this is the true principle 
of interpretation, some things must be added at 
once to prevent misconception, and to bring out 
more vividly the truths which are intended to be 
symbolized by the incidents here recorded. 

And, in the first place, when we read of the 
prodigal being a great way off, and so are led to 
think of his return as a long and toilsome journey, 
we are not to suppose that conversion is neces- 
sarily a protracted process. The coming back, of 
course, in the parable must correspond to the 
departure into the far land ; and though frequently 



THE PRODIGAL SON. . 127 

there is a considerable time of anxiety and strug- 
gle between the moment of awakening and the 
time when the soul finds joy and peace in believ- 
ing, yet this dark middle-passage is by no means 
essential. Rather it is the result either of faulty 
views as to the way of salvation, or of a want of 
faith in the truth as it is presented to the sinner. 
There was no such long interval between convic- 
tion and conversion in the case of those who were 
born again on the day of Pentecost, or in that of 
Saul of Tarsus, or in that of the Philippian jailer ; 
and I cannot but think that, unintentionally of 
course, much harm has been done in this matter 
by the records of some Christian biographies, and 
even by such an admirable allegory as " The 
Pilgrim's Progress." No doubt the representa- 
tions given are true to actual experience in many 
instances ; but all such experiences spring from an 
unwillingness on the part of individuals to submit 
themselves at once to the righteousness of God, 
and perhaps, also, from an imperfect understand- 
ing by them of the real nature of the gospel. We 
ought not, therefore, to imagine that such cases 
are normal instances, and that every conversion 
to be genuine must be in every respect like them. 
The distance at which the sinner stands from 



128 THE LOST FOUND. 

God is spiritual, not material ; and whensoever 
the soul gives itself up to Jehovah to be saved, 
in His way, through Jesus Christ, that is the 
moment of conversion. It may be long, in many 
cases it has been long, after moral thoughtfulness 
and spiritual- anxiety have been produced, before 
the individual comes to this unreserved submis- 
sion. But it need not be long, and it should not 
be long. Nay, it would not be long if the gospel, 
in its freeness and fullness, were by the soul 
clearly understood and thoroughly believed. The 
way is prolonged by the fact that the sinner 
either does not know, or will not believe the 
glad tidings of salvation through the crucified 
Redeemer. On this point I cannot refrain from 
reproducing an anecdote which I heard one 
evening in conversation from the lips of Mr. 
Spurgeon. An earnest young evangelist on his 
way one morning from Granton to Edinburgh, 
overtook a Nevvhaven fishwife carrying her bas- 
ket to the market. Anxious to do some good, 
he said to her, *' There you go with your burden 
on your back. Once I had a heavier load than 
that, but, thank God, I have got rid of it now." 
" Oh," she replied, " you mean the burden that 
Jolm Bunyan speaks of; I know all about that ; 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 129 

but I have got rid of mine many and many a 
year ago." " I am happy to hear of it," said 
the evangelist. ''Yes," she answered; "but do 
you know I don't think that man Evangehst was 
a right preacher of the gospel at all. When 
Christian asked him where he was to go, he said, 
Do you see yonder wicket-gate? He said he 
didn't, and it was no wonder. He asked again, 
Do you see yonder shining hght ? and he said he 
did ; and then Evangelist directed him to make 
for that. Now, what business had he to speak 
either about the shining hght or the wicket- 
gate ? Couldn't he have pointed him at once to 
the Redeemer's cross ? Christian never did lose 
his burden till he saw that cross ; and he 
might have seen it sooner if Evangelist had 
known his business better. Much good he got, 
too, by making for the shining light ! Why, be- 
fore he knew where he was, he was floundering 
in the Slough of Despond ; and if it had not 
been for the man Help, he would never have got 
out." " What !" said the evangelist to her, " were 
you never in the Slough of Despond ?" " Ay, 
many a time, many a time," was the reply ; 
" but let me tell you, young man, it's a hantel 
easier to get through that slough with youi 



130 THE LOST FOUND. 

burden off, than with your burden on T' Now, 
though as a record of what often actually hap- 
pens, and of what really occurred in his own his- 
tory, the immortal allegorist has given us a truth- 
ful portraiture, the Christian fishwife w^as in the 
right; for the moment a sinner rightly appre- 
hends and thoroughly believes the doctrine 
of the cross, he loses his sin- burden ; and 
this may be after no painfully protracted 
process of agony and inward conflict. In 
point of fact, awakening conversion, and peace 
may be all but simultaneous, and the soul may 
come to a full knowledge of its guilt almost at the 
same moment that it embraces the Saviour whom 
God has provided. Understand, therefore, it is 
not needed that you go through a long series of 
terrible experiences, called by some old divines 
^^ laiV'Worh f' but you may, w^here you are and as 
you are, enter into peace by simply accepting 
deliverance through the crucified Eedeemer. 

Again, when we read that the father saw his 
son " a great way off, and had compassion on hiifa, 
and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him," 
we are not to imagine that God at such a time 
comes to the sinner in any special and pecuhar 
manner other than that set before us in the 



THE PKODIGAL SON. 131 

gospel. Admirably has one said here — " The 
coming out of the father to meet his son fignr- 
atively exhibits the sending of the Son." ^ x4.ll 
the way to the Cross of Calvary has God come, 
running to meet sinners. What a long way that 
is, who can tell ? for who can measure the dis- 
tance from the throne of glory to the dust of 
death ? That cross is the meeting-place be- 
tween the righteous God and the repentant pro- 
digal. In Christ God has come in infinite 
compassion, showing how He can be a just God 
and a Saviour ; and when we grasp that cross 
in simple faith, it is then that He embraces us 
and takes us home to his heart. " In Christ," 
the Father has come as far as He righteously 
can come to save sinners ; and when the sinner 
is by faith '' in Christ " also, then is he received 
by God. Hence the action of the Father, as 
portrayed in this parable, is only a pictorial re- 
presentation of the truth Paul proclaims as the 
ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that " God was 
in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, 
not imputing their trespasses unto them ; " and 



* Von Gerlach, quoted by Stier in his commentary on tLis 
passage. 



132 THE LOST FOUND. 

concerning wliicli lie says, " Now, then, we are 
ambassadors for Christ, as though God did be- 
seech you by us ; we pray you in Clirist's stead, 
be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made 
him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 
In Him ; mark that. Till we are " in Him " God 
has not met us ; but when we unite ourselves 
to Him by simple trust, then we, too, are " in 
Him," and the Father embraces us, and falls up- 
on our necks and kisses us. 

But now, having made these needful qualifica- 
tions, let us seek to discover what is involved in 
the reception here described, the orders given to 
the servants, and the banquet subsequent thereto. 

The reception indicates loving and complete 
restoration to the position which has been for- 
feited by sin. The father uttered no taunting 
word ; but his whole procedure showed that he 
took back his son into his affection and into his 
place in the family. Now, similarly, God " up- 
braideth not." When, among men, one goes 
against a father's or a friend's advice, and brings 
upon himself the evils which had been described 
as sure to follow his projected course, the tempta- 
tion is very strong — usually, indeed, too strong to 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 133 

be resisted — to say, " I told you so. You have 
deserved all that has come upon you. You have 
nobody to blame but yourself." But nothing of 
this sort comes from God to the repenting sinner. 
The past is past. God forgets as well as forgives. 
We might, indeed, almost be afraid to use such a 
term regarding Him, but He has used it himself. 
He says, " I will not remember thy sins ;" nay, as 
if to impress vividly on our minds that nothing of 
upbraiding will ever come from Him to us, the 
prophet says (Micah vii. 19), *' Thou wilt cast all 
their sins into the depths of the sea ;" and Heze- 
kiah, realizing this truth from the human side, 
says to Jehovah (Isaiah xxxviii. 17), " Thou hast 
cast all my sins behind thy back." Wondrous 
truth this, that when God receives us. He makes 
no reference to the past, nor in any way whatever 
painfully reminds us of our ingratitude and dis- 
obedience. Truly, when we think of it, we may 
say with David, in the first joy of his own fresh 
forgiveness, ^' Blessed is he whose transgression 
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the 
man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, 
and in whose spirit there is no guile." 

But though God does not upbraid the returning 
sinner with his guilt, we must not suppose that 



134 THE LOST FOUND. 

the penitent himself does not feel it keenly. Nay, 
rather, the loving-kindness of his Father only 
makes him all the more sensible of the heinous- 
ness of his iniquity. Observe, it was after the 
embrace of the father, not before it, that the pro- 
digal sobbed out his confession. He did not say 
within himself, " It is all right. He has taken me 
back without a word, and there is now no need 
for me to say a syllable about my folly ; so I will 
not use the w^ords which I had resolved to em- 
ploy." No ; for this new and unexpected love 
made him feel more intensely than ever what a 
fool he had been, and how miserably he had mis- 
understood his father. Hence, though he had been 
sincere when first he thought of making a confes- 
sion, he makes it now with a depth and a fervor to 
which his heart had been heretofore a stranger. 
Now, it is quite similar with the penitent. At no 
time does he feel the heinousness of his sin so 
much, as when he is rejoicing in God's forgiving 
love. This is indeed the glory of the gospel, 
that, though it proclaims pardon, it does so in 
such a way that, in the very act of believing the 
proclamation and accepting the forgiveness, the 
sinner sees and hates his iniquity as he never did 
before. Nor need this astonish us ; for the gos- 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 135 

pel shows US more thorouglily the heart of that 
Father whom we have sHghted ; and while faith 
in it may keep ns, yea, must keep us, from desir- 
ing to be like " one of his hired servants," it wdll 
also lead us all the more earnestly to sob out the 
confession, " Father, I have sinned against hea- 
ven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to 
be called thy son." 

The orders given to the servants, " to put the 
best robe " on the prodigal, and " to put a ring on 
his hand, and shoes on his feet," were designed to 
give to the returned one the means of occupying the 
position and performing the duties to which he had 
been restored. The gift of the robe reminds us of 
the words of Zechariah regarding the vision of Jo- 
shua, in the third chapter of his prophecies : '^Noio 
Joshua was dotlied ivitli filthy garments, and stood 
iefore the angel. And he ansioered and spahe 
unto those that stood hefore him, saying, Take 
away the filthy garments from him. And unto 
him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity 
to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee icith 
change of raiment. And I said, Let them set 
a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair 
mitre upon his head, and clothed him ivith 
garments. And the angel of the Lord stood 



136 THE LOST FOUND. 

by^^ The ring, again, recalls to our remem- 
brance the honor done to Joseph by Pharaoh, 
when the king ''took off Ids ring from his hand 
and put it iijjon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him 
in vestments of fine linen, and put a chain of 
gold about his neck ;"t while the shoes were 
designed to be a badge of sonship, for the slave 
was not permitted to have sandalled feet. Every- 
thing here is thus in keeping with the customs 
of Oriental life ; but in giving a spiritual inter- 
pretation, it is diflS.cult to say whether we should 
be content with regarding the particulars in the 
aggregate as a description of the fullness of the 
restoration to sonship, to which I have already 
adverted, or whether we should take each sepa- 
rately, as denoting some individual blessing of the 
gospel. No doubt the former is the correct prin- 
ciple of expression ; yet, it requires an effort to 
resist the temptation to see in the " best robe " 
the emblem of the Redeemer's righteousness, 
clothed in which the believer becomes " comely 
with His comeliness put upon him ; " in " the 
ring, " the token of assurance, or, perhaps, of 
that *^ sealing of the Spirit until the day of 

* Zechariah, iii. 3-5. f Genesis xli. 12. 



THE PBODIGAL SON. 137 

redemption," of which Paul speaks ; and in the 
" shoes/' that *' preparation " or readiness " of 
the gospel of peace/' which is mentioned by the 
apostle in his enumeration of the various pieces 
of the Christian armor, and by which the child 
of God is fitted for " walking up and down in 
His name," and, "running in the way of His 
commandments." But without unduly pressing 
these analogies, it is more satisfactory to rest in 
the general truth intended to be illustrated, which 
undoubtedly is, that though his former por- 
tion had been sinfully squandered, the prodigal 
was restored, not only to his father's love, but 
also to his place in the family ; and this just 
means that the believing sinner is taken back 
into God's favor, and replaced in the position 
which he would have occupied if he had never 
fallen. 

But what is the spiritual meaning of the feast? 
Some look upon the fatted calf as the emblem 
of the sacrifice of Christ ; others view it as 
symbolizing the Lord's Supper. But Trench, I 
think, has given the true interpretation of the 
banquet, when he takes it to allude to " the fes- 
tal joy and rejoicing which is in heaven at the 
sinner's return, and no less in the Church on 



138 THE LOST FOUND. 

earth, and in his own heart also ;" while Arnot 
puts it perhaps more simply, if also more anti- 
thetically, thus : " The feast indicates the joy of 
a forgiving God over a forgiven man, and the joy 
of a forgiven man in a forgiving God." ^ Thus 
we have here again a point of union between 
this parable and the two preceding. The one 
great purpose of them all was, to illustrate the 
fact that ^' there is joy in heaven over one sinner 
that repenteth ;" but the peculiarity here is not 
that the joy is greater over the recovery of that 
which had been lost, than over those who had 
never gone astray, nor that the gladness is par- 
ticipated in by unfallen beings, but rather in this, 
that the delight is shared by the reeovered one. him- 
self ; and, in accordance with the plan which 
we have pursued of restricting ourselves to that 
which is distinctive in each of these stories, we 
shall confine our attention to this alone. The 
feast was made in honor of the prodigal. It was 
given specially and peculiarly to him. Others, 
of course, partook of it, and, more particularly, 
his father enjoyed the festival ; but what most of 



* "Tlie Parables of our Lord," by the Bev. Willian Arnot, 
p. MO. 



THE PKODIGAL SON. 139 

all comes out here is, tliat the lost son had a joy- 
ous feast given to him on his welcome home. 
The joy of God and of the angels has been al- 
ready considered. Here we have the gladness of 
the converted soul itself ; and if we keep this 
prominently before our minds, we shall not fall 
into the common mistake of suppos ng that the 
scene of this banquet is confined to heaven. 
Doubtless, so far as God and the angels are 
concerned, we must so regard it ; but in respect 
to the lost but now restored son, we must think 
of it as on earth and in his own soul. The 
new life begins in feast. The child of God has 
" joy " as well as *^ peace in believing." While 
God rejoices over him, he rejoices in God ; and 
in the hour of conversion this gladness is pecu- 
liarly intense ; so much so, indeed, that it may 
well be described as a special era of high festi- 
val. When Philip preached in the Samaritan 
city, and multitudes were turned unto the Lord 
under his ministrations, we read that " there was 
great joy in that city ;" and when the Ethiopian 
eunuch had found the salvation that is in Christ 
Jesus, we are told that " he went on his way 
rejoicing." So it ever is. The moment in which 
salvation is embraced is one of gladness, and 



140 THE LOST FOUND. 

the Christian life may be described as a per- 
petaal feast. Not always, indeed, is this joy pre- 
sent in the same degree, nor do all possess it in 
the same measure, for differences of tempera- 
ment and constitution manifest themselves in this 
as in other things ; but it is always to some ex- 
tent the portion of the believer on earth, and in 
heaven it shall be pure and perfect and peren- 
nial. Many illustrative cases might be gleaned 
from Christian biography in proof of the exist- 
ence and intensity of this spiritual joy in the 
convert's heart ; but we cannot now enter upon 
so wide a field. SuflSce it to say, that the holi- 
est, most elevating, and most lasting gladness 
which the soul can feel, is that which springs 
from the contemplation of God's mercy, revealed 
to it and received by it through the cross of 
Christ. Peter used not the words of wild fa- 
naticism, but the language of sober truth, when 
he said, " In ivhom, though now ice see him not, 
yet helieving, we rejoice with joy unsjoeaJcabhy and 
fidl of glory ; and some among us can indorse 
the words of Mrs. Isabella Graham, when, re- 
ferring to her own conversion, she says : '' 3Iy 
vieivs then icere dark compared loitli ichat they are 
now ; hut this I remember, that, at the time, I felt 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 141 

heart-satisfying trust in the mercy of God through 
Christ, and for a time rejoiced with joy scarcely 
supportable, singing almost continually the hundred 
and third Psalm''^ Such, my brethren, is the 
banquet which God spreads for the returning 
sinner ; but we may not forget that He makes 
both the Church on earth and the Church in 
heaven sharers with Him in His joy. Tliey all 
alike make merry — I like the homely word — 
over a sinner's conversion ; and though, on the 
principle that it is more blessed to give than 
to receive, the highest delight is that of God, 
yet we must not forget the gladness of the 
penitent himself. Sinner, do you want to be 
happy ? Then return to God. Away from Him 
you must ever be in want, hungering after the 
world's husks, which yet cannot be obtained ; 
but from Him you will receive the truest joy 
— the joy of forgiveness, the joy of accept- 
ance, the joy of assurance, the joy of holiness, 
and, finally, as the climax and consummation 
of them all, the joy of heaven. They speak 
falsely who allege that the gospel is a melan- 



* Life of Mrs. Isabella Graham, published by the American 
Tract Society, p. 150. 



142 THE LOST FOUND. 

choly thing, and an. enemy to mirth. *' True 
piety is cheerful as the day," and the Chris- 
tian life should be continous joy. 

In the old dispensation there were three 
great annual festivals at which the sons of 
Abraham went up to Jerusalem — that of the 
passorer, which commemorated and renewed their 
gladness over their deliverance from the Egyp- 
tian house of bondage.; that of the first fruits 
when the earliest ripe sheaves gave joyous fore- 
token of the coming harvest ; and that of Ta- 
bernacles, when, for a season their tent-life 
was renewed, and they blessed God for their 
settled enjoyment of the promised land. But 
what was temporary and occasional in the former 
economy, is permanent under the gospel, and the 
gladness of all these three festivals is united in 
the Christian life. The Pascal joy of deliver- 
ance — the Pentecostal gladness of first fruits in 
the possession of the earnest of the Spirit — and 
the Tabernacle-rejoicing in the contemplation 
from out the fi'ail booth of the flesh of " the city 
which hath foundations whose builder and maker 
is God " — these all combine to make the expe- 
rience of the believer a continuous feast, which 
is not the less real because it is internal and spir- 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 143 

itual. Three feasts in one ! and the festival-time 
a Hfe-time ! Is there nothing in all this to al- 
lure us ? " Christ our passover is sacrificed for 
us, therefore let us keep the feast " our life-time 
through, " not with the old leaven of malice and 
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sin- 
cerity and truth." "^ 

* 1 Corinthians, v., 7, 8. 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



IV. 
THE ELDER BROTHER. 



" Now his elder son was in the field ; and as he came and drew nigh to 
the house, he heard music and dancing. 

"And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things 
meant. 

** And he said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath 
killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 

" And he was angry, and would not go in ; therefore came his father out, 
and entreated him. 

" And he, answering, said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve 
thee ; neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment ; and yet 
thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends : 

"But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living 
with harlots, thou hast kiUed for him the fatted calf. 

" And he said unto him. Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have 
is thine. 

'* It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad ; for this thy 
brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and is found." 

Luke xv., 25-32. 



THE PRODIGAL SOK 



IV. 

' THE ELDER BROTHER. 

In the general household joy over the prodigal's 
return, there was one who refused to share. The 
elder son, who now for the first time comes into 
prominence, and who seems to have had very large 
ideas of his own importance, was absent in the field 
at the moment of his brother's re-appearance, and 
only became aware that something unwonted had 
occurred when, as he drew near, he heard the 
sound of music and dancing. Instead, however, 
of going trustfully forward into the house, in the 
full confidence that everything over which his 
father presided must be right and proper, he 
showed his mean and suspicious disposition by 



148 THE LOST FOUND. 

calling one of the servants, and asking of him what 
" these things meant." Promptly and plainly, 
the domestic made reply, '' Thy brother is come ; 
and thy father hath killed for him the fatted calf, 
because he hath received him safe and sound*" 
The servant's words imply that, in his view, it 
was the most natural thing in the world that such 
a festival should be held on such an occasion ; 
but the information which he conveyed was 
gall and wormwood to the elder brother's soul. 
" What ! such a fuss made over the return of a 
useless good-for-nothing ! Never was any like 
rejoicing made on my account. Is this, then, the 
reward of all my steadiness and industry ? Let 
them keep feast who please, but I will take no 
place at the board." And so, in the sulks, because 
more seemed to be made of his brother than of 
himself, he refused to enter the house. But his 
father could not think of allowing him to remain 
in this mood, without at least making an effort 
to induce him to change his purpose. The same 
love that prompted him, when he saw his younger 
son returning, to go forth to meet him, disposed 
him now, when he saw his elder son departing, to 
go out and entreat him to come in. But he was 
met in an unfilial and almost insulting man- 



THE PEODIGAL SON. 149 

ner. " Lo, these many years do I serve thee " — 
(what ! a son, and yet talking of service in this 
mercantile fashion ! — where has thy filial affection 
gone ? Has it been for the reward, then, after all, 
and not for love, that thou hast staid at home ?) 
— " neither transgressed I at any time thy com- 
mandment " — (excellent young man ! truly thou 
hast a good report of thyself. A very model son ! 
A perfect specimen of obedience to the Fifth 
Commandment ! and yet, methinks, had thy son- 
ship been as faultless as thou sayest, it would have 
been also somewhat unconscious of its merit. I 
like not this dwelling on thy pre-eminence. There 
is more true sonship in thy brother's, " I have 
sinned," than in thy self- laudation) — " and yet 
thou never gavest me a kid that I might make 
merry with my friends " — (Didst thou ever ask it ? 
or was there ever any great occasion in thy life 
when such a thing would have been appropriate ? 
Besides, the fatted calf was killed, not to give a 
banquet to thy brothej-'s friends, but to express 
thy father's own delight. Why wilt thou think 
thyself slighted, when no offence was intended 
toward thee ?)— ^* But as soon as this thy son was 
come "—(Thy son ! Is he not then thy brother 
also ? or dost thou repudiate the relationship ? 



150 THE LOST FOUND. 

What an insult to thy father is this sneering 
phrase !) — " who hath devoured thy hving with 
harlots " — (Ah ! how envy exaggerates the faults 
of those w^hose good it grudges, and imputes to 
them wickednesses of its own imagining ! The 
prodigal had not devoured all the father's living ; 
there was a good fat portion yet for the elder son ; 
and as to his wasting his substance on harlots, 
that is an unsupported assertion on the part of his 
brother. It may have been true. But there is no 
evidence- that it was. Envy, however, takes it 
quite for granted. Tour very precise and proper 
people, who pride themselves most upon never 
having transgressed any commandment, have al- 
ways most to say about other people's faults, and 
they take good care to make them blacker by 
their speech.) 

We have thus parenthetically exposed the un- 
generous insinuations and unfilial disposition 
of this youth's complaint, in order that we may 
bring out before you more clearly the mag- 
nanimity of his father, who takes no notice of 
the sneering innuendoes which were designed to 
be so stinging, but only calmly replies, ^' Son, 
thou art ever with me, and all that I have is 
thine." As if he had said, "Why speak of 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 151 

making merry with thy friends, when thou hast 
always had a feast in me ; and as for thy bro- 
ther's waste, say no more of that ; thou art not 
the poorer on that account, for all that I have 
is thine." But this is all the length the fa- 
ther will go ; he will not acknowledge that he 
had in any way overlooked the one son, in his 
joy over the return of the other; nor will he 
admit that he had done anything strange or im- 
proper in making such a festival. On the con- 
trary, he defends his procedure, and repeats his 
gladness, at one and the same time, saying, " It 
was meet," i.e., it was fitting ; — it was in every 
respect in harmony with the dictates of nature 
and religion — it was in the highest degree 
appropriate, — " that we should make merry and 
be glad ; for this thy brother was dead, and 
is alive again ; and was lost, and is found." 
Observe the delicate reproof conveyed in the 
first word, "son," and in that other expres- 
sion, " thy brother." On the former occasion 
he said, " This my son was dead, and is 
alive again ; but now it is " thy brother." It 
was as if he had said, " I have observed the 
spirit of a servant in all that thou hast said, 
but I wiU still call thee * son ;' and though thou 



152 THE LOST FOUND. 

cynically didst refuse to call the returned wan- 
derer ' thy brother/ I will not let thee act so 
utterly unworthily. Thou wilt think better of it 
yet. Somewhere in thee, surely, there is a bro- 
ther's heart ; and if that be touched, thou wilt 
at once admit the *meetness' of our mirth." 

Thus far I have had regard only to the literal 
asjDect of the story, and I cannot pass from that, 
without pausing a moment or two longer to 
point out two things which come out here, which 
may be wholesome to us all. 

Observe how self-importance makes a man 
moody and unhappy. He who is always think- 
ing of his own excellences, renders himself there- 
by unfit to enjoy the good of others, and is prone 
to imagine that every token of affection given to 
another is an insult offered to himself. Hence he 
is touchy, sensitive, irritable and envious. He 
takes offence where none is meant, and even 
when those around him are not thinking of 
him at all, he iuterprets their conduct as if it 
were studiously discourteous, and goes through 
the world smarting from wounds which have 
sprung, not so much from the neglect of others, as 
from his own overweening self-conceit. There 
is no surer way to make ourselves miserable 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 153 

than to tliink of ourselves more highly than 
we ought to think. It isolates us from all about 
us. It cuts us off alike from human sympathy 
and divine assistance. It makes us very Ish- 
maels, with our hands against every man, and 
every man's hands apparently against us. It 
gives a jaundiced interpretation to the behavior 
of those who, so far from meaning to do evil to 
us, have our best interests at heart, and love 
us with self-sacrificing affection. The man who 
has a wound about him, no matter where it may 
be, feels it to be always in his way. Let him 
do what he will, or go where he may, he cannot 
move himself but he is conscious of its pain. 
In like manner, he who has this feeling of 
self-importance is continually smarting. Some- 
body has always been slighting him. He is 
constantly complaining of having been insulted, 
and when honor is given to another, he feels 
nothing but that he has been overlooked. Thus 
he shuts himself out from every festival, and 
mopes most of all when others are merry. May 
God deliver us from this idolatry of self, on whose 
altar all true nobleness and real happiness are 
completely immolated ! 

Notice, again, how repulsive to others this self 



154 THE LOST FOUKD. 

important spirit is. Tou cannot take to this 
elder brother. Even in his wanderings and sins, 
the younger was more lovable than he, his indus- 
try and sobriety notwithstanding. So it is ever 
with the selfish one. He is a non-conductor 
in society. The electricity of love never passes 
through him ; and in the end, all loving hearts 
are driven from him. Thus he is not only 
the most unhappy, but also the most useless of 
men. The ^' sdjist'' is left, in righteous retribu- 
tion, to that most miserable of all companions, 
himself. He has no magnetism about him. He 
can gain no entrance into the hearts of others. 
He stands on the outside of every holy enterprise, 
and is at the very antipodes of him who said, 
" Neither count I my life dear unto myself, that I 
may finish my course with joy, and the ministry 
that I have received of the Lord." Thus, ahke 
to do good and to be happy, we nlust forget 
self ; we must merge ourselves in the cause which 
we are seeking to advance ; we must be, as one 
has .phrased it, " emptied and lost and swallowed 
up in Christ." 

But passing now to the interpretation of the 
parable, the question arises, " Who is this elder 
brother?" Various answers have been given. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 155 

Some have said that he represents the angels 
in their relation to the human race, but this 
can scarcely be maintained ; for, as the other 
two parables in this chapter make evident, so 
far from being envious at the reception given 
by God to returning sinners of mankind, the 
angels rejoice with Him. This view, therefore, 
must be conclusively set aside. Others have 
found those represented by the elder brother in 
the Jews, while the younger is taken by them 
to symbolize the Gentiles ; and it must be con- 
fessed that much may be advanced in favor of 
this explanation. As a nation the Jews were 
most exclusive, and the very idea of the Gentiles 
being made partakers with them of the blessings 
of the covenant was most repugnant to them. 
Thus when our Lord, in his first sermon at Na- 
zareth, referred to EKjah's mission to Sarepta, 
and Elisha's cure of Naaman, and thereby sug- 
gested 'that the Gentiles were to be made 
sharers of the favors which had been so long 
restricted to the Jews, His hearers were so en- 
raged that they laid violent hands upon Him, 
and sought to slay Him. So, again, when Paul 
addressed the crowd from the castle stairs at 
Jerusalem, they gave him a patient hearing until 



156 THE LOST FOUND. 

lie spoke of the Gentiles ; but immediately there- 
after they cried, " Away with such a feilow 
from the earth ; it is not fit that he should live." 
Nay, so strong was this feeling even in the breast 
of Peter, the apostle, that he had to be prepared 
by a special vision from heaven for preaching 
the gospel to the Gentile Cornehus. There is no 
doubt, therefore, that the spirit of the elder bro- 
ther here was manifested by the Jews in their 
treatment of the Gentiles. But whether this 
was the primary reference of the appendix to 
the parable of the prodigal, is another mat- 
ter. The occasion on which it was spoken is 
described in the opening verses of the chapter ; 
and though we have there an allusion to the 
Scribes and Pharisees as over against the 
publicans and sinners, yet I fail to see any hint 
of nationality. These different classes or charac- 
ters were all Jews alike ; and therefore it seems 
to me to be not only an unwarrantable restriction 
of the scope of the parable, but also a niistaken 
idea of its original application, to say that the 
elder brother represents the Jew. Others, there- 
fore, understand that the purpose of Jesus in 
introducing the elder brother into this parable 
was to hold up a mirror to the Scribes and Phari- 



THE PKODiaAL SON. 157 

sees, in which each of them might see himself, 
and might thus comprehend, not only how un- 
amiable he was, but also how little there was in 
common between him and God. But even this 
interpretation is beset with difficulties ; for how 
could it be said that these Pharisees ajid Scribes 
had never transgressed God's commandment? 
and with what propriety could they be called 
God's sons, or could it be aflSrmed that He was 
ever with them, and that all that He had was 
theirs? To these questions, Calvin, who may 
taken as the exponent of this class of interpre- 
ters, thus replies : — '' He compares the Scribes, 
who were swelled with presumption, to good and 
modest men, who had always lived with de- 
cency and sobriety, and had honorably sup- 
ported their families ; nay, even to obedient 
children, who, throughout their whole lives, had 
patiently submitted to their father's control. And 
though they were utterly unworthy of this com- 
mendation, yet Christ, speaking according to 
their belief, attributes to them, by way of con- 
cession, their pretended holiness as if it had 
been virtue, as if He had said. Though I were 
to grant to you what you falsely boast of that 
you have always been obedient children to God, 



158 THE LOST FOUND. 

still you ought not so haughtily and cruelly to 
reject your brethren when they repent of their 
wicked life."^ To those who accept this ex- 
planation as satisfactory, the parable has a 
precise and distinct reference to the Pharisees 
and Scribes ; and in this view, the uncertainty 
in which we are left as to whether the elder 
brother went in to the feast or not, becomes very 
suggestive, as being in itself an appeal to the self- 
righteous ones to whom it was addressed, to 
reconsider their position, if haply they might, 
as we know some of them afterwards did, go 
in, and hold high festival with God's redeemed 
ones, brought from the very lowest of the 
people. 

Others, however, dissatisfied with all the inter- 
pretations which I have enumerated, and pressed 
especially with the difficulty, that the elder brother 
seems to be regarded as a true, though tempora- 
rily erring son, have preferred to make him stand 
as the representative of those who, as Matthew 
Henry says, are " really good, and have been so 
from their youth up, and never went astray into 
any vicious course of living ; to whom, therefore, 

* Commentary in loco. 



THE PEODIGAL SON. 159 

those words, ' Son, thou art ever with me/ are ap- 
pUcable without any difficulty, though they are 
not so to the Scribes and Pharisees." 

Now, if it were necessary to adopt any one of 
these explanations, to the exclusion of all the rest, 
I should, without hesitation, prefer that which re- 
gards the elder brother as the likeness of the 
Scribes and Pharisees, believing that, though it is 
by no means free from difficulty, it is yet the most 
pointed and natural interpretation of them all. 
Still, I do not see that we are called to identify 
this self-sufficient and unamiable youth with any 
particular -individual. To me he stands out rather 
as the idealized representative of a disposition or 
character. He is the impersonation and embodi- 
ment of envy ; and wherever, or in whomsoever, 
that quality exists, there you have, for the time 
being, the elder brother. I gladly avail myself 
here of Mr. Arnot's words : — " In representing the 
human figure, an artist may proceed upon either 
of two distinct principles, according to the object 
which for the time he may have in view. He may, 
on the one hand, delineate the likeness of an in- 
dividual, producing a copy of his particular fea- 
tures, with all their beauties and all their blem- 
ishes alike ; or he may, on the other hand, con- 



160 THE LOST FOUND. 

ceive and execute an ideal picture of man, the 
portrait of no person in particular, with features 
selected from many specimens of the race, and 
combined in one complete figure. The parable of 
the prodigal is a picture of the latter kind ; it is 
not, out and out, the picture of any man, but it is 
to a certain extent the picture of every man."^ 
Thus viewed, the elder brother also is an ideal pic- 
ture, not agreeing in every minute particular with 
any one man, or any one class of men, but yet so 
portraying the workings of one evil disposition 
that the envious man in him may see himself, 
whether he be a Pharisee or Scribe, standing out- 
side of the spiritual Church of Christ altogether, 
or a genuine but imperfect disciple, who is really 
connected with the Lord Jesus. This -explanation, 
while it gets rid of the difficulties which must meet 
every one who attempts to give a distinct inter- 
pretation to every expression employed by, or ad- 
dressed to, the elder brother, has the further merit 
that it widens the apphcation of the parable, mak- 
ing it speak to the genuine believer in Christ, as 
well as to the legalist and the self-righteous. Take 
the elder brother as representing the concrete 

* The. Parables of oui- Lord, p. 431. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 161 

Pharisee, and very few will be inclined to think 
that he has anything to do with them. Take him, 
on the other hand, as the dramatic delineation of 
the working of the self-righteous and envious 
spirit, and each of us must feel that there is a 
great deal of elder-brotherliness about himself. 
In the legalist there is nothing else but this evil 
disposition ; but there is more or less of it even in 
the true follower of Christ ; and so the elder bro- 
ther stands out here as a warning to all, and none 
of us can say with truth that he has no message 
to us. " "Who is this elder son ?" The question 
was once asked in an assembly of ministers at El- 
berfeldt. Daniel Krummacher made answer — " I 
know him very well ; I met him only yesterday." 
" Who is he ?" they asked, eagerly, and he replied 
solemnly, "Myself!" He then explained that, on 
the previous day, hearing that a very ill-conditioned 
person had received a very gracious visitation of 
God's goodness, he had felt not a little envy and 
irritation."^ This was the true reading of the 
story, and it is capable of almost indefinite ex- 
pansion and manifold application. It fits the 
haughty Scribes and Pharisees, to whom it was 

* Stiers' "Words of Jesus," vol. iv., p. 162 ; quoted in Dr. 
James Hamiltou's '* Pearl of Parables,'' p. 164. 



162 THE LOST FOUND. 

first addressed, and who murmured at the atten- 
tion paid by Christ to publicans and sinners, say- 
ing, " This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with 
them." It fits the Jev/s in the Saviour's day, and 
even in the early Christian Church, who looked 
askance at the Gentiles, and complained that the 
gospel was preached to them also. It fits the 
disciples at Jerusalem, who, immediately after 
Paul's conversion, were " all afraid of him, and 
believed not that he was a disciple ;" and it fits 
Paul himself, v/hen, in a mood of stern and 
somewhat unfeeling severity, he refused to take 
back Mark into his confidence, and had so 
sharp a contention with Barnabas over the affair 
that they departed asunder the one from the other. 
Truly, even of that great apostle, at that time, 
it might have been said, '' He was angry, and 
would not go in." So, again, when a Christian 
of long-standing and irreproachable character, who 
has known some degree of happiness in Christ, but 
has not had anything approaching to ecstasy, is 
inchned to be suspicious of the genuineness of the 
transport of him who has just been converted from 
a life of grossest sin, and is disposed, in envy, to 
ask, *^ "Why should such experiences be granted to 
him, while I, w^ho have been seeking to follow 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 163 

Jesus all my days, Imow nothing of them ?" we 
have the working of the same disposition as that 
which the elder brother here displayed. When a 
minister of age and excellence, who is mourning 
over the apparent fruitlessness of his labors, is 
tempted to ask how it comes that a young brother, 
in the very outset of his career, is made instru- 
mental in bringing multitudes to Christ, and per- 
rriits himself to think, if not to say, that it is 
ungenerous in God to pass by an old and faithful 
servant such as he has been, and to use and bless 
an inexperienced lad ; or when a stickler for order 
and decorum murmurs that the Lord should honor 
with success the irregularities of a revival meet- 
ing, and the labors of some " converted prize- 
fighter," in larger measure than he seems to 
bless the stated workings of the authorized 
ministry in the ordinary exercises of the sanc- 
tuary ; or when some father, prominent in the 
Church for piety and usefulness, is led, in his 
haste and in his self-importance, to ask, " How 
comes it that the children of this one and that 
one — of little name among the brethren, and 
hardly known for their zeal and devotedness — 
are all converted, while my son is permitted to 
grow up in sin, and to become to me a source of 



164 THE LOST FOUND. 

constant anxiety ?" — in each and all of these we 
have a phasis of that unlovely disposition which, 
in the elder brother, is here condemned. The 
Sabbath-school teacher who throws up the work 
because another seems more successful in it than 
himself ; the laborer in any department of benev- 
olent activity, who, because he thinks that more 
is made of some one else than of himself, gives 
way to -personal pique, and will have no more to 
do with the concern ; the over-sensitive, irrita- 
ble, petted man, who is forever taking offence, 
and manages somehow to exclude himself from 
every society with which he has been connected, 
and to estrange himself from the sympathy and co- 
operation of all with whom he has come into con- 
tact ; may all look here, and in the elder brother 
of this parable they will behold themselves. But 
let not even these imagine that they are beyond 
God's acceptance. The father came out and en- 
treated the elder brother to go in to the feast ; and 
so still God is appealing, to the envious. The door 
is open to them, if they will but enter ; and when 
they consent to do so in the spirit of a son, and 
not of a servant, then they too shall rejoice, and 
the festival, instead of aggravating them into 



-THE PRODIGAL SON. 165 

misery, will be felt to be an appropriate expression 
of their mirth. 

I close with three practical reflections from 
the whole subject. 

1. In the first place, let professing Christians 
seek to manifest to sinners gener.ally the same 
spirit that God has shown to themselves. The 
gentleness of God should be repeated by us, and 
with the same tenderness and affection as Jesus 
dealt with the ungodly, we should deal vvith 
those whom we desire to bring in penitence to 
Him. Parents, this parable speaks to you about 
the .training of your children, and bids you seek 
their godly upbringing, not in rigorous and un- 
bending sternness, but in tender love. Sabbath- 
school teachers, this parable bids you, in your 
earnest efforts for your scholars' welfare, show to 
them the same gentleness that the father mani- 
fested when he fell weeping on the neck of his 
returning son ; and it warns you against indulging 
in vituperation and reproach. Had the prodigal 
met the elder brother first, he might have gone 
away back to his iniquity, ay, even from his 
father's very door. So a cruel, unfeeling, taunting 
word may be the means of sending away from 
Jesus one, who else might have come to Him in 



166 THE LOST FOUND. 

believing penitence. Pastor, there is a message 
liere for thee too : and thou art commanded to be 
in the midst of thy flock, loving, as was this father 
to his erring son ; and to beware lest, by hard 
unfeeling sternness, thou shouldst drive away those 
who are seeking to enter into the fold. O for 
more of this divine tenderness among us all ! Let 
us remember that the reputation of the gospel, 
and in some sort also the character of God him- 
self, is at stake in our conduct ; and let us tremble 
with a holy fear, lest we should give occasion to 
His enemies to blaspheme His name, or lest we 
should, by our repulsiveness, scare away some poor 
soul from the loving Father who is so willing to 
receive him. Men judge of- God through us. Let 
us see, therefore, that they have, from our deport- 
ment toward them, a right idea of His willing- 
hood to welcome them. 

2. In the second place, let anxious sinners 
be on their guard against judging of God's attitude 
toward them from that which is assumed by some 
who call themselves His children. They may be 
Pharisees, and not true sons. Or they may be 
really children, yet, at the moment, by reason of 
the imperfection still adhering t6 them, they may 
be acting an unfilial part. In any case, we must 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 167 

not allow the character and conduct of any man, 
be he official in the Church, or whatever else, to 
prejudice us against God. Men may repel us, 
and refuse to have anything whatever to do with 
us ; but God will receive us graciously, and love 
us freely. The respectable Church members in this 
respectable age may stand aloof from us, and may 
make us feel that they w^ould consider them- 
selves to be degraded by any fellowship with us ; 
but He who sat and talked with the woman of 
Samaria at the well, and allowed the woman that 
was a sinner to wash His feet with tears and wipe 
them with the hairs of her head, will in nowise 
cast us out. The minister of the gospel may 
even so far forget his character and privilege as to 
talk to us with hard and cold severity ; yea, he 
may treat us with rudeness or with positive 
injustice, but he is only a man ; he may be even 
a very imperfect man ; he is not God ; and let us 
be thankful that God is not like him. There is 
a magnanimous mercy, an exalted generosity in 
God which we look for in vain, in the same degree 
at least, in any man. And whatever may be the 
effect upon us of the actions of our fellow-mor- 
tals, we must not allow them to set us against Je- 
hovah. He is always on the out-look for returning 



168 THE LOST FOUND. 

sinners, and before they have time to finish their 
confession unto Him, He is already faUing in 
welcome on their necks. Do not, therefore, mis- 
interpret Him by supposing that the cold-hearted 
exclusiveness, which is too manifest in many 
who profess to be His children, is in any respect 
characteristic of Him. Regard Him as he pre- 
sents Himself to you in His word. Read Him 
as He has written Himself in the mission and 
sacrifice of His Son; and whatever else maybe 
suggested to you by the disposition of His pro- 
fessed people, rest you sure of this, that His true 
character has been portrayed in this parable, and 
that IsaiaB. has not misrepresented Him when he 
says, " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the un- 
righteous man his thoughts, and let him return 
unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon 
him, and unto Our God, for he will abundantly 
pardon." 

Finally, let us learn from this whole chapter 
the sincere, earnest, personal interest which God 
has in the salvation of sinners. I have already 
indicated that in each of these parables we have 
set before us a part at least of the work of each 
of the three persons of the Godhead in the 
redemption of man. The Son becomes incarnate, 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 169 

and offers Himself a sacrifice for sin ; the Spirit 
gives the truth, and secures its entrance into the 
soul ; and the Father gladly welcomes the wan- 
derer to his home again. We may surely conclude, 
therefore, that everything God does in connection 
with the work of salvation, is in the sinner's 
interest, and with a view to secure his recovery. 
There are no obstacles to man's salvation now on 
God's side. If there be obstacles yet, they lie 
with the sinner. Jehovah, with all the solemnity 
of an oath, has said, " As I live I have no pleas- 
ure in the death of the wicked, but that the wick- 
ed turn from his way and live ;" and even more for- 
cibly than by that striking asseveration has Jesus 
set the same truth before us in this matchless chap- 
ter. I answer, therefore, all difficulties which the 
inquirer may feel about such topics as election, 
and the special agency of the Spirit, and the 
sovereignty of God, and the like, by bidding him 
go and read these parables. They show that God 
is in earnest in seeking to save lost souls. They 
prove, therefore, that everything about him, and 
done by Him, is in the interest of the sinner's 
return. His electing love, the enlightening agen- 
cy of His Spirit, His sovereignty, are all to bo 
interpreted in the light of this chapter, and are 



170 * THE LOST FOUND. 

to be understood as all designed to help, and not 
to hinder the sinner's restoration. They are not 
stumbling-blocks placed in the way of the penitent, 
but they are agencies at work in removing ob- 
stacles from his path. See to it, therefore, that 
you do not misunderstand God. Meet every 
speculative difficulty arising from the doctrines to 
which I have referred, with this chapter, which 
has always been regarded as one of " the crown 
jewels " of the Christian Church, Silence every 
foreboding about the reception which God may 
give you — with thes^, "' the first three," of the 
Redeemer's parables. Arise, and go in fullest 
confidence to thy Father. He will not reject 
thee, but will enfold thee in His forgiving em- 
brace, and will say over thee, in infinite tenderness 
and with Divine dehght — '' This my son was 

DEAD, AND IS ALIVE AGAIN ; HE WAS LOST, AND IS 
FOUND." 



THE END. 



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W. G. T. SHEDT), D.D., Presbyterian. E. D. YEOMANS, D.D., Presbyterian. 

E. A. ^VASHBURNE, D.D., Episcopal. Rev. C. C. STARBUCK, Concrregational. 

A. C. KENDRICK, D.D., Baptist. J. ISIDOR MOM BERT, D.DT, Episcopal. 

W. H. GREEN, D.D., Presbvterian. D. W. POOR, D.D., Presbyterian 

J. F. HURST, D.D., Methodist. C. P. WING, D.D., Presbvterian. 

TAYLER lewis, LL.D., Dutch Reformed. GEORGE E. DAY, D.D., Congregational. 

Rev. CH. F. SHAFFER, D.D., Lutheran. Rev. P. H. STEENSTRA, Episcopal. 

R. D. HITCHCOCK, D.D., Presbyterian. A. GOS]MAN,-D.D., Presbvterian. 

E. HARWOOD, D.D., Episcopal. Pres. CHAS. A. AIKEN. D'.D., Presbyt'n. 

H. B. HACKET1\ D.D., Baptist. M. B. RIDDLE, D.D., Dutch Reformed. 

JOHN LILLIE, D.D., Presbyterian. Prof. WM. WELLS, D.D., Methodist. 

Rev. W. G. SUMNER, Episcopal. W. H. HORNBLOWER, D.D., Presbyt'n. 

PftOF. CHARLES ELLIOTT, Presbyterian. Prof. GEORGE BLISS, Baptist. 

THOS. C. CONANT, D.D., Baptist. T. W. CHAMBERS, D.D., Reformed. 



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